What We're Hearing

Sooner or later, they all come back to the mortgage industry. This week's "hey, I'm back in the business" award goes to The Kislak Organization of Florida. Mortgage veterans of yesteryear may recall Kislak Mortgage was a well regarded nonbank lender back in the 1980s before it exited the industry through a sale. The Kislak family and organization remained in real estate after the mortgage unit was sold but not as a residential lender. But now the firm said it plans to establish "brick and mortar" lending offices to service residential borrowers in Florida and the Southeast. For complete details see the National Mortgage News website later today. Meanwhile, in case you missed last week's delinquency numbers from the Mortgage Bankers Association, I would like to point out that the second "safest" mortgage out there today is the VA loan. Delinquencies on the product were 7.96% at March 31, down from a high of 8.21% a year ago. The safest loan (for lender/servicers) is (no surprise here) the prime FRM. The worst loan? Don't faint but it's subprime ARMs which have delinquencies just north of 29%...