Dan Phillips of First Plus infamy, phone home! Hey, maybe it's time for theresurrection of Cityscape and United Companies? What's going on here? Apparently, The Money Storeis back in business -- well, sort of. MLD Mortgage of Union, N.J., a company founded in 2000 by former MoneyStore vice chairman Morton Dear, has bought the trade name "The Money Store" for an undisclosedamount. MLD is an active residential lender in New Jersey controlled by Mr. Dear. TMS -- as most industry veteransknow -- crashed and burned back in 2000 with First Union holding the burning bag. If you don't know whoDan Phillips is or if you've never heard of Cityscape or UC then you haven't been in this business long enough.For more details read Monday's National Mortgage News...
Is Goldman Sachs shopping for a servicing operation? Industry sources say it may beso. Keep in mind that several major investment banking houses -- Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros. and MerrillLynch -- all own servicers/specialty servicers...
Is Warren Buffet bullish on the mortgage industry? A $650 million private placementof debt securities by Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Finance that will be used, in part, to finance a mortgagesubsidiary of Clayton Homes (a Berkshire company) has been rated "AAA" by Standard & Poor's.A few years back, Buffet unloaded just about all of his positions in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.At the time it didn't look like a wise move. Today, well, it's a different story...
We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of Capitol Commerce Mortgage of Sacramento,Calif., blowing up because it decided not to hedge its loan production. CapCom was a top-40 ranked, privately heldlender...
GMAC Commercial Mortgage is providing $320 million in construction financing for thenew New York Times headquarters building in Midtown Manhattan. The office building is a joint venturebetween the Times, Forest City Ratner Companies and ING Real Estate...
HomeBanc Corp. of Atlanta went public last week, raising $257 million. Kevin Raceis one of HomeBanc's top officers. He also is a former top executive at HomeSide Lending and Fleet Mortgage...
Ken Posner of Morgan Stanley writes in a new research report, "HELOCs posea greater threat to the MIs than we previously thought. Remarkably, 80% of the high-quality MI market has beendiverted to 80/10/10 HELOCs and similar products, according to MGIC. This raises significant adverse selectionissues, in our view." Stay tuned...
Sandler O'Neill on Countrywide Financial Corp.: "CFC reported its Juneoperational data, which slightly exceeded our expectations. Production volume modestly increased on a sequential-quarterbasis by 0.6% to $32 billion compared to our expectation for a modest decline"...
Fannie Mae will report second-quarter 2004 earnings results on Wednesday, July 21, 2004. TimHoward, vice chairman and chief financial officer, and Jayne Shontell, senior vice president of investorrelations, will host the conference call. Last week, Dow Jones reported that HUD has opened formal investigationsinto Fannie and Freddie's international operations and Fannie's financing of loans in key congressional districts...
It's a bit too early to say who might get the FHLB-Chicago president's job, but someindustry executives are suggesting that whoever gets the nod might be a former or current top official at FannieMae or Freddie Mac...
WASHINGTON NEWS: Industry lobbyists say there is still a fighting chance that legislationto make mortgage insurance payments tax deductible might happen this year. The language is part of the internationaltax bill. Meanwhile, Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight director Armando Falcon toldCongress this past week that the agency is seeking $59.2 million to "more fully staff" its supervisoryprograms. The money is for fiscal year 2005. "We will continue to enhance supervisory programs concentratingon the annual examination, special compliance examinations, examinations of accounting treatments, and the managementand analysis of enterprise capital. This 2005 budget supports 237 positions, compared to the 178 positions supportedby the FY 2004 budget," Mr. Falcon said.
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: HUD's loss is MBA's gain. The Mortgage Bankers Associationhas named Ken Markison senior director and regulatory counsel in its government affairs department. Markisonis retiring from HUD after working on such hot button issues as GSEs and RESPA reform. Markison is one of the country'stop experts on RESPA, MBA says.
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
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