Avenue Capital of New York, a hedge fund which has almost $14 billion in assets under management, is supposedly sniffing around the jumbo conduit space. One source told us that Jay Lown, a former UBS executive, is involved. From March 2008 to October 2009 Lown served as an outside mortgage banking consultant to the Office of Thrift Supervision…
Meanwhile, late this past week, rumors were floating around that a $500 million portfolio of jumbo loans might be up for grabs…
Is it just me or is everyone and their brother entering the correspondent (buying) space? Is it just me or are more lenders starting to advertise mortgages on TV again? CitiMortgage and Quicken Loans come to mind…
Early this past week the National Mortgage News website broke the news that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau hired Christopher Haspel away from the Government National Mortgage Association, giving him a top slot at the new agency. We’re told he starts on Monday, the 20th. To subscribe to the NMN website call 800-221-1809…
IMPORTANT DATA STUFF: MortgageStats.com has just been updated to include not only full year 2010 figures but first-quarter information as well. MortgageStats boasts the nation’s top 400 lenders and servicers, including hard volume numbers and contact information. It also includes exclusive monthly analysis from me. (You can’t get this information anywhere else.) For more information drop an email to
CLARIFICATION: In a recent print and Web version of an NMN story we talked about the sorry state of the residential nonperforming loan market—that is, firms that invest in NPLs but don’t appear to be thriving. We briefly mentioned a company called G8 Capital of California. Although originally the firm could not be reached for comment, on Friday we finally talked with CEO Evan Gentry who wanted to set the record straight. He confirmed the residential NPL space is terrible, but stressed that his firm hasn’t really bought any residential NPLs since 2008. Although it buys troubled homes (real estate) and flips them, G8, he said, is more involved in the commercial real estate sector (NPLs and real estate) and is thriving. “We have 20 funds and we’re profitable in every one. Each has annual returns of 20%,” he told us. Got that: 20%. And G8—which buys with cash—absolutely loves the apartment business...
And late this past Friday Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan called the apartment market “huge,” noting that commercial real estate has weathered the recession quite well…
B of A, of course, exited the reverse lending arena a few months back. Wells Fargo, the Big Kahuna of reverses, bolted on Thursday. However, fear not, MetLife Bank is stepping up—and warehousing the product, too. The exclusive story was on the NMN website this past week with an expanded version in the Monday paper edition of our newspaper…
This past week we received an email from one Natalie Scholberg who said her client, Saxon Mortgage, was upset because we mentioned (in a footnote no less) that it was for sale. We told Natalie that not only did we hear the news from inside Saxon, but everyone in the media had been reporting the fact and that Saxon’s owner, Morgan Stanley, wasn’t denying it either. She said she’d get back to us in a few hours. That was 48 hours ago and still no word from Natalie. Saxon employees: if you’re not for sale anymore let us know. Drop me an email at
WASHINGTON NEWS: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is preparing $2 billion worth of structured asset sales that will hit the market shortly, a top agency official said Thursday. Speaking at a distressed asset conference sponsored by National Mortgage News, FDIC deputy director Pamela Farwig advised investors, “If you’re interested in structured sales with the FDIC…I would very quickly get prequalified.” Reporting by NMN’s own Austin Kilgore.
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: Stonegate Mortgage Corp., Fishers, Ind., hired industry veteran Dan Bettenburg as its new president. He comes to the firm from Ally/GMAC/RFC.
DATA NOTICE: If you’re looking for a full year ranking of all the top-ranked correspondent loan buyers and wholesaler funders (and more) that information is in the new Annual Data Report, which is published by National Mortgage News. The ADR, an Excel spreadsheet, also includes the nation’s top 100 retailers, servicers and much more. If you need telephone numbers and contact names that information can be found in the new edition of MortgageStats.com. For more on the ADR and M-Stats drop an email to
KEY CONFERENCE YOU NEED TO ATTEND: In the fall National Mortgage News will host a conference on the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. For more information drop a line to
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THE LAST WORD: Are more homebuyers kicking the tires these days? Drop me a line at
