Mortgage brokers and wholesale funders take note: On Friday the yield on the 10-year Treasury (which most mortgages are pegged to) fell to 5.03%. Will the refi boom -- which is easily more than a year old -- get a new set of sea legs?
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A new study commissioned by PR firm Campbell Lewis Communications, says a number of lenders are bullish on marketing this year and that firms, "are looking to deploy technology in their B2B relationships." CLC also found that maintaining a strong wholesale and correspondent base is key for "most lenders"
Remember the $25 million "premium" that National Australia Bank said it made after selling HomeSide Lending's production platform to Washington Mutual? NAB clarified recently that due to "transaction costs" and "triggered costs" (primarily employee liabilities) it actually booked a loss of $10 million on the deal...
Short positions in Farmer Mac rose 180% from mid-April to mid-May. (From mid-March to mid-April shorts in the stock rose 42%.) Wells Fargo & Co., the parent of the nation's second largest mortgage banking firm, is the 10 th largest "institutional fund" holder of Farmer Mac's stock... From mid-April to mid-May short positions in subprime giant Household International rose by 20%. Meanwhile, shorts in subprime lender Saxon Mortgage fell by 29%
This past week the Millennial Commission, a bipartisan Congressional panel, released a report recommending several ways to increase affordable housing (and affordable housing finance) in the U.S. However, one panelist, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation wrote a dissenting opinion on the commission's findings, noting (among other things) that current housing programs "actively penalize and discourage marriage"
It would stand to reason that with the tech meltdown in Silicon Valley, housing prices would suffer, but according to several different news sources, prices have held up rather well with modest three-bedroom homes in Redwood City fetching upwards of $700,000
Burrell Communications Group, Chicago, which bills itself as "a leading multicultural full-service marketing communications agency" said it has added Fannie Mae to its client roster. Burrell said it will develop and execute an African-American business-to-business assignment for Fannie...
CORRECTION: in last week's briefing we mistakenly said that Wells Fargo had bought HomeSide. WaMu was the buyer of HomeSide, not Wells. Sorry for the slip...
