What We're Hearing

So, Warren Buffett wants to enter the residential mortgage banking business, does he? The details are far from clear, but apparently Mr. Buffett's firm, Berkshire Hathaway Holdings, has been poking around the industry's ashes for several months. Representatives of Berkshire have been looking at not only "whole" companies but some of the larger servicing offerings out there. Keep in mind that in years past Berkshire has been a large investor in Wells Fargo & Co., as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (The company dumped its GSE holdings many moons ago.) Also, Mr. Buffett, at one time, personally owned shares in Countrywide Financial Corp. In other news, the FDIC has a handful of non-performing and performing whole loan pools out for bid, many of which include commercial mortgages. One is a church loan. Also, an agency spokesman confirmed to National Mortgage News this morning that it is exploring the possibility of securitizing some of its residential whole loans...