THIS JUST IN: Is a new subprime lender about to emerge? I know of one industry veteran who hopes to secure financing to originate nonprime low LTV mortgages. He’s been working on his "capital raise" for almost a year but will it come to fruition? Others have come before him and failed. The dollar amount involved is less than $150 million but if it becomes reality you can guarantee that his firm will burn through that money fast. The nonprime loan demand is that great. For an update see the National Mortgage News website or our weekly. To subscribe call: 800-221-1809…
Meanwhile, the FDIC’s definition for assessing “subprime” loans for large bank assessments is changing. Instead of a three-digit credit score, based on the proposed rule, a higher risk loan will be defined as all consumer loans where the probability of default within two years is greater than 20%. Of course, most of us yearn for the days when it was A-, B, C, D, alt-A, alt-B and alt-C. That grading system worked out really well…
Even though residential subprime lending is (more or less) near dead, apparently subprime auto lending is on the rise again. At least with a car you can both ride it to work (if you have a job) and sleep in it…
GET A JOB: In an effort to help mortgage professionals secure employment (when we can) we offer this: Don Frommeyer’s brokerage shop in Indiana has two openings for loan originators. His firm, Amtrust Mortgage, is located in Carmel, Ind. Tell him you saw it mentioned in this column…
Things must be rocking over at Stan Kurland’s PennyMac. The company—a fast-growing correspondent buyer of mortgages as opposed to being an NPL investor—recently filed a shelf registration to sell preferred stock. That’s right: preferred stock. PMT’s share price is near its all-time…
As for former Countrywide founder and CEO Angelo Mozilo, a new report from Rep. Darrell Issa’s Oversight Committee on the "Friends of Angelo" mortgage program reveals some of Mozilo’s true feelings about former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines. When a Fannie accounting scandal resulted in Raines being ousted Mozilo wrote in an email: “His arrogance and his total lack of sensitivity to the world around him was at the root of all that you read today.” (Imagine that, Mozilo considered Raines arrogant.) But the 136-page report also reveals how Countrywide was screwing up the processing of "FoA" loans for workers on Capitol Hill. CFC managing director Sydney Lenz told the committee that when he visited congressional offices in Washington to discuss pending issues, instead he was hit with complaints about how Countrywide had “mishandled” the processing of mortgages for Capitol Hill workers…
As an aside, Mozilo once told me how he personally originated several loans a year—to stay close to the business…
It must be an election year when HUD issues a statement that says thus: “Home equity rose $457.1 billion in the first quarter of 2012, a 7.4% increase from the previous quarter and its highest level since the second quarter of 2010”…
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Back in November U.S. District Court Judge Melinda Harmon reversed HUD’s suspension of Allied Mortgage’s FHA privileges. A HUD spokesman told NMN’s Brian Collins, “The program staff says the court’s decision means that they continue to be an FHA-approved lender and that FHA must treat them as such.” We understand Allied has changed its name and is actively buying "streamline" refis.
RESARCH & DATA DEPARMENT: The new electronic edition of MortgageStats.com is ready. MortgageStats is a living, breathing online database that offers the nation’s top 400 lenders, servicers and key contact information and phone numbers. We also list the top loan officers in the nation by volume. To gain access to the database drop a line to
THIS COLUMN IS FOR SALE: For advertising in this column—the most widely read in the entire mortgage industry—drop an email to
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: Clayton Holdings recently named Robert A. Harris as its new general counsel. Allonhill named Shelly Schwiseo as managing director of sales.
MORTGAGE CONFERENCES: SourceMedia/National Mortgage News will hold its annual Loss Mitigation Conference July 19-20 in Dallas. For more information email
WEB NOTES: I’m on Twitter talking about D.C. storm damage, Euro soccer and 100-degree temperatures in Washington.
LAST WORD: Can you imagine a lender trying to buy influence in Washington through a special discount loan program? I wonder if Issa will investigate IndyMac’s "Friends of …" program?
