The 19 or so Capital Hill staffers who were paid $200 each (for one hour of work) giving their opinions on FannieMae ads are now being asked to give the money back. Duff Stewart, evp of GSD&M, Fannie'sad agency, told National Mortgage News that he and his client were concerned enough about the matterthat he telephoned the House Ethics Committee to get its opinion on whether accepting the $200 for servingon a focus group violated House rules. It seems unclear whether a Hill staffer who serves on a focus group andis paid for his/her time is in violation of House rules. Whether a violation occurred will be determined by whois ultimately paying for the focus group (in this case Fannie) and whether the one paying the money (Fannie throughresearch group OMR) has any business before Congress. NMN first wrote about the matter in its December9 issue. More to come on MortgageWire this week...
It's anticipated that in time the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago will file for approval with the FederalHousing Finance Board to issue mortgage-backed securities itself. The bank's recent "Shared Funding"program is viewed as an interim step. At a media luncheon last week Freddie Mac officials hardly seemedworried about the new program. But one industry official, who works in mortgage insurance, said Fannie Mae is nervousabout Shared Funding...
This week Fannie Mae will give reporters its production and interest rate forecasts for the new year. Chief economistDavid Berson and SVP Barry Zigas are slated to speak...
Subprime mortgage bankers know full well that state attorney generals are still poking around the issue of predatorylending. According to Washington consultant Morris Reid, Delaware's attorney general is now looking intopredatory rates on credit cards...
About a year ago the Pritzker family of Chicago settled with the FDIC (and fast) over its allegedinvolvement in the collapse of Superior Bank of Illinois. (The Pritzkers and their partners, the Dwormanfamily, paid $460 million to the government.) Jay Prtizker, the scion of the family, died back in 1999,leaving a plan to carve up $15 billion in assets to 11 family members. But, according to press reports, the originalcarve-up plan has been tossed and instead several of the family's assets -- including the Hyatt Hotel chain --might be taken public...
Argent Mortgage is sponsoring the Toyota Atlantic race car of driver Danica Patrick. Argent,by the way, has a really cool "pop up" ad (not the Internet kind) in the new issue of Brokermagazine. Race car fans take note...
According to the Center for Housing Policy, in 2001, 14.4 million families in the U.S. (one in seven) hadcritical housing needs which means they paid more than half their household's net income for housing or lived inwhat the center calls "substandard" housing...
Wilshire Credit of Portland, Ore., ranked 10th, among subprime subservicers in the third quarterwith contracts totaling $2.38 billion. It had an impressive growth rate of 113%...
MORTGAGE PEOPLE IN THE NEWS: He's not exactly a mortgage person any more, but former Fannie Mae chairmanJames Johnson (and former Mondale aide) has been named co-chair of a presidential commission that will studyingprivatizing parts of the U.S. Postal Service.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: SLM Corp., which owns GSE Sallie Mae, is buying First Trust Financial,Weymouth, Mass., a $300 million a year residential producer.
