It seems the revolving door to the executive suite is spinning faster at plenty of lenders these days. The CEOof a top-ranked subprime firm is on her way out. To find out who, read Monday's National Mortgage News.Don't subscribe? Call: (800) 221-1809. Meanwhile, Sean Wilson has departed as the head of productionat Home Loan Center, the mortgage banking arm of LendingTree. We're told the departure of Mr. Wilsonand another executive could be related to a class-action lawsuit filed against LT/HLC on behalf of consumers. Thesuit charges that there isn't really any competition for the business of consumers at LendingTree and that thecompany is using the site to feed leads to HLC. LendingTree has denied the civil allegations...
In early October when Bear Stearns said it was buying the subprime production arm of ECC Capital,a spokeswoman for the investment banker told us that buyback "issues" between the lender and Wall Streetfirm had been "resolved long ago." Maybe so, but according to ECC's third-quarter earnings statement,buybacks (fed by early payment defaults) are eating the company alive. In the third quarter alone, ECC, the parentof Encore Credit, "accrued" $23 million for losses tied to buybacks. So, maybe buybacks are not an issue"between" ECC and Bear, but it's certainly an issue for ECC. It appears that Bear had a choice to makeon ECC -- either buy most of the company or force into bankruptcy. For the full ECC story see Monday's NMN...
According to the soon-to-be-released 3Q edition of the Quarterly Data Report, Wells Fargo Home Mortgagehas surpassed Countrywide Home Loans as the nation's largest residential servicer. To order the QDR e-mail
Housing starts plunged by nearly 15% in October to an annualized rate of 1.486 million units, the slowest monthlypace since July 2000. The 15.9% drop in single-family starts was the steepest since 1991. Yes, it looks ugly. Howugly? Here's your weekend homework assignment. Look in your local newspaper, in the real estate section, and beholdall the deals builders are cutting on new construction. In The Washington Post, CentexHomes is willing to provide 100% financing on all its properties. In one ad I viewed, the builder wasn't evenlisting the price of homes. Instead, it was highlighting only the monthly payments. What does all this mean formortgage bankers? For the next six months the industry can survive off of refinancings. After that -- and if theflat or negative yield curve persists -- look out below. The woes of ECC/Encore will spread like wild fire...
Here's a telling sign about subprime delinquencies: at the end of September, Accredited Home Loans hada 30-plus day delinquency ratio of 5.44%. A year earlier the ratio was just 1.95%. Accredited is based in San Diego,one of the hottest housing markets of the past few years. Last week Roth Capital upgraded Accredited toa "buy" from a "hold"...
Uber investor Carl Icahn and Macklowe Properties have bid $4.6 billion for the publicly tradedReckson Associates Realty Corp., Uniondale, N.Y., which owns several high-profile office properties in thegreater New York metro area. Prior to the Icahn bid, Reckson, a REIT, was trying to buy another realty company,SL Green. Who sits on the board of Reckson? Answer: Lew Ranieri, the former Salomon Brothersvice chairman who is credited with inventing the mortgage-backed security...
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston said its largest source of mortgage loans, Balboa ReinsuranceCo. -- a Countrywide subsidiary -- stopped selling loans to the FHLB in April. "Management cannot predictthe extent to which Balboa Reinsurance Co. may sell loans to the bank in the future," the Boston FHLB saysin its third-quarter earnings report...
The Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulatorsare issuing nontraditional mortgage guidance for state-licensed mortgage bankers and brokers that is consistentwith federal guidelines on originating interest-only and payment-option ARMs...
Give me a hot dog, a beer, and yeah, a mortgage. Citigroup, parent of CitiMortgage, has boughtthe naming rights to a new baseball stadium being constructed for the New York Mets (who almost made itto the World Series this year, but choked in the final innings of game seven, but let's not go there.) The newstadium will be called Citi Stadium. Before the Citi deal was struck, long-suffering Met fans were hopingfor a stadium name that might pay tribute to such "stars" of yesterday such as Marv Thornberry,George "the Stork" Theodore, Ron Hodges, Choo Choo Coleman and let'snot forget Mackey "Double Hitch" Sasser...
WASHINGTON NEWS: It looks as though come 2007 the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversightwill leave unchanged the $417,000 conforming loan limit. (See Monday's NMN for details.)
MORTGAGE MEETINGS: There's still time to sign up for SourceMedia's annual "Secondary MarketConference" Dec. 6 in New York at the Le Parker Meridien Hotel. Among the highlights, M&A veteranDale Kurland of Classic Strategies will moderate a panel called "Mergers & Acquisitions:Why is Wall Street Buying Mortgage Loan Companies?" There also will be a panel on "New (Exotic) MortgageProducts," plus much more. Hope to see you there. To register,
DATA NEWS: Looking for a great contact directory on mortgage bankers, servicers, brokers and loan officers?What about a database on every multifamily lender in the U.S.? That would be the Mortgage Industry Directorywhich is available online as well as in print. The MID/eMID also has exclusive rankings on lenders and servicersthat you cannot get elsewhere. The online version also provides recent news articles on lenders and servicers rankedin the book. For more information e-mail
