What We're Hearing

Who says Uncle Sam doesn’t care about non-bank mortgage lenders that rely on warehouse lines of credit? Follow my logic here: Uncle owns 34% lf Citigroup which this morning revealed that it would use $2 billion of TARP money to make new warehouse lines of credit to non-bank residential funders. Now that Colonial Bancgroup’s warehouse division in Florida has been cordoned off by yellow “keep out, this is a government raid” tape that means Citigroup (thanks to Uncle) could soon be the nation’s largest warehouse lender. We called Colonial this morning to get a response but a person answering the phone wasn’t commenting. The bank’s warehouse chief wasn’t in today. Meanwhile, it appears the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is taking a keen interest in the warehouse issue. For the full story see the National Mortgage News website later today. And one last thing: We’re hearing some interesting things about the TARP IG probe of the Taylor, Bean & Whitaker/Colonial deal. Hear anything, drop me a line at: Paul.Muolo@SourceMedia.com...