It looks as though our friends to the north at Royal Bank of Canada want out of the U.S. mortgage business.The bank has hired an investment banking firm to advise it on its options, industry sources have told NationalMortgage News. However, a spokeswoman for the bank in Toronto declined to comment. See Monday's NMNfor the full story...
Also in Monday's NMN: the industry's first-ever ranking on the nation's top interest-only mortgage lenders.Rankings on the top 50 players in the IO market are available via NMN's Alternative Products QuarterlyData Report. For more info contact
@ThomsonMedia.com
So long Gucci Gulch. Troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae said last week that it is slashing its congressionallobby budget. In the first half of last year Fannie spent at least $5 million on outside lobbyists. Fannie's archenemies at FM Policy Focus once complained that it had a hard time recruiting legal help because the GSEhad already inked deals with most of the Beltway's best legal minds. Well, it now appears FMPF won't have thatproblem anymore...
Other Fannie News: According to the Motley Fool, investment banker Bill Fleckenstein of FleckensteinCapital has taken to calling Fannie "Franron." As we reported many moons ago now-dethroned Fanniechairman and CEO Franklin Raines once tried to recruit Enron's Ken Lay to serve on Fannie's boardof directors...
Industry executives tell us that the mortgage industry's most aggressive recruiters of talent are (in no certainorder) Countrywide Home Loans, First Horizon and Wells Fargo...
The chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based a la mode inc. told appraisers that his company would"never partner with an automated valuation model provider" and declared himself to be "the appraiser'sadvocate." Speaking at the premiere a la mode appraiser convention in Las Vegas, David Biggers emphasizedthat he is not after a piece of the appraiser's fee because he wants appraisers to prosper so they can continueto invest in his company's offerings. Mr. Biggers suggested that one way for appraisers to halt the increasingacceptance of AVMs is to copyright their reports to make it impossible for their data to be stolen and used tocreate a competing product, such as an AVM. See Monday's NMN for more details...
Private-label originator Nexstar Financial of St. Louis is raiding the competition, hiring away a topexecutive from PHH Mortgage. Last week Nexstar named Leonard M. Wagner -- a seven-year veteran ofPHH -- its national account director. Both firms play in the private label space...
Wholesale lender AmNet Mortgage of San Diego has rescheduled its fourth quarter and full-year 2004 earningsrelease and conference call in order to allow its independent auditors more time to complete year-end audit work...
Nationwide Advantage Mortgage has announced a partnership with FedEx Employees Credit Association,Memphis, under which the latter will offer low-cost mortgages to its 66,000 members...
Christie Pennino, vice president and founder principal at GreenStreet Financial in Huntington,was recently named by the Long Island Business News one of the leading young business professionalsunder 40 on Long Island. A mortgage banker, GreenStreet claims it is the 11th largest volume-producing mortgagefirm on Long Island...
Greenwich Capital on Alan Greenspan: "The February FOMC minutes contained no bombshells,but the theme throughout the discussion was that rates will continue to head higher"...
MORTGAGE NEWS REPORTER NEWS: Mary Fricker, a former stringer for National Mortgage News,has won the Polk Award. Ms. Fricker and a team of reporters from the Santa Rosa Press Democratwon the regional reporting prize for a series examining the impact of companies deciding to outsource high-payingtech jobs to other countries...
WASHINGTON NEWS: The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight is proposing a regulationto require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to report mortgage fraud or possible mortgage fraud to the agencyin a timely fashion. The regulation would also require the GSEs to establish internal controls, procedures andtraining programs to detect and report mortgage fraud. "This rule will ensure that Fannie Mae and FreddieMac do their part to help combat mortgage fraud," said OFHEO director Armando Falcon.
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: Homebridge Mortgage Bankers has named Timothy Dowd vice president of businessdevelopment. He will oversee corporate training and development. Homebridge has rapidly expanded to almost 100loan officers and 200 employees and is currently originating mortgage loans in 25 states. The company anticipatesexpanding operations to over 30 states in 2005.
MORTGAGE BANKERS OF ALL SIZES TAKE NOTE: NMN has just launched its annual production/servicingsurvey for its Mortgage Industry Directory. If you would like a survey, contact
@ThomsonMedia.com
LOAN OFFICERS TAKE NOTE: NMN, Origination News and BrokerUniversehave just launched their first-ever "loan officer" survey for 2004. The aim of the survey is to get abetter handle on the LO market. Rankings on the nation's top LOs will appear later this year in these publications.If you're a LO for a mortgage banker or broker contact:
@ThomsonMedia.com
DATA NOTICE: NMN is still offering research reports on "LOS Systems," "D2CInternet Lending" and "Retail Lending Over the Internet." For more information contact:
@ThomsonMedia.com
@ThomsonMedia.com
