What We're Hearing

There's plenty of chatter out there about non-performing loan (NPL) auctions but it doesn't seem like a whole lot of deals are getting done -- or so it seems. One NPL broker told us that "there's still a wide gap between the bid and ask price." Requesting anonymity, he said FASB's decision to allow financial firms to 're-mark' their portfolios to more friendly values is having a major impact on the NPL auction business. He believes there's at least a 15 point difference between bid/ask (on some portfolios) and that sellers have unreasonable expectations. "Some sellers that had marked sub-performing loans down to 60 cents [on the dollar] have marked it back up to 90 cents," he said. Meanwhile, later this afternoon National Mortgage News will publish on its website a story about a fairly large M&A deal...