The U.S. housing market could get rocked soon. Then again, maybe not. But there are some ominoussigns out there: Last week a senior economist at Deutsche Bank told an investors' meeting in New York thatthere is a housing bubble in the U.S. and that he expects home prices to decline 10% to 20%. Speaking at a meetingsponsored by the Association of German Mortgage Banks, Cary Leahy noted, however, that "we havenever had declines in housing prices across the economy." And even though "it's going to end in tears"and "people are going to get hurt," their financial pain will be moderated by a good labor market. OnMonday, National Mortgage News will report that there is a price war raging in subprime land. (Tosubscribe to NMN call 800-221-1809.) And The New York Times, which is often late to big housing financerelated stories (the S&L crisis, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae), last week reported on the growinguse of no-downpayment mortgages. The Times report also prompted a copycat story on the network news. So, are thehousing and housing finance sectors about to get hammered? Not as long as the yield on the 10-year remains in therange of 4.6% to 5%. (At press time it was at 4.65%.) Keep in mind that on Tuesday the Federal Reserve isexpected to raise the federal funds overnight rate 25 basis points to 1.25%. If the hike is 50 basis points, willthe markets implode? We'll know Tuesday...
Spotted at last week's meeting of the International Union for Housing Finance, heldin Brussels: none other than Alex Pollock, founder of the mortgage partnership finance program. Wednesdayis Mr. Pollock's last day as president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago before he becomes a policywonk over at the American Enterprise Institute...
Washington-area commercial real estate maven Joe Robert has launched a new investmentfund to buy structured real estate finance products, namely commercial MBS, and mezzanine and bridge loans. Thefund, JER Investors Trust, raised $172 million in an offering underwritten by Friedman, Billings, Ramsey...
Two mortgage-related stocks that keep testing new highs: Countrywide Financial andGenworth Financial, the parent of GE Mortgage Insurance. Genworth recently went public...
Sandler O'Neill on alternative-A lender Impac: "We continue to recommendIMH with a BUY rating." Sandler has set a price target of $26 on the company...
Online lender E-Loan says it was named one of America's top-20 most-trusted companiesfor privacy. It cites a national study conducted by the Ponemon Institute and TRUSTe...
In May nonconforming lender First Franklin originated $2.79 billion in loans -- thehighest dollar-volume month in the company's history. First Franklin is owned by National City Bank...
WASHINGTON NEWS: The Treasury Department has extended a key provision of theTerrorism Risk Insurance Act that requires commercial property and casualty insurers to offer terrorism insurancepolicies for another year. Treasury was under pressure from the Mortgage Bankers Association and other tradegroups to act before Sept. 1. (See Monday's NMN for the full story.)
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: Subprime giant (and big baseball sponsor) Ameriquest Mortgagehas named Wayne Lee its new chief executive officer. Mr. Lee is already quite familiar with Ameriquest becausehe is president of its wholesale arm, Argent Mortgage Co. (He will continue on as president of Argent Mortgage.)Mr. Lee replaces Kirk Langs who is retiring. According to NMN's Quarterly Data Report, Ameriquestis the nation's largest subprime funder. DeepGreen Financial has named Nicholas Hahn chief financialofficer. Prior to joining DeepGreen, Mr. Hahn was executive vice president, production accounting, for Countrywide.
MORTGAGE DATA/RESEARCH NOTICE: Want to know who the top-50 subprime lenders are inthe nation and how much the industry has funded the past 12 quarters? Read the Quarterly Data Report. Formore info contact:
@ThomsonMedia.com
@ThomsonMedia.com
