Origination

In response to a story on loan production at GMAC's Residential Capital LLC unit, a company spokeswoman has asked to clarify her statements to MortgageWire. Her statement follows: "ResCap is not making predictions about how our loan volumes will be impacted due to the closure of the retail and wholesale channels. However, we are excited about continuing to originate loans through our ditech.com, GMAC Mortgage direct and correspondent channels." Originally, the spokeswoman said that despite the elimination of the firm's broker channel and traditional retail branches, origination volumes would not decline by much.

Three classes from LB-UBS Commercial Mortgage Trust commercial mortgage pass-through certificates series 2004-C7 have been downgraded by Fitch Ratings. The downgrades were as follows: class P, from B1 to B2; class Q, from B2 to B3; and class S, from B3 to Caa1. Fitch also affirmed the ratings on 22 other classes in the transaction. The downgrades were attributed to realized and projected losses on specially serviced loans and to increased dispersion of loan-to-value ratios. The rating agency can be found online at http://www.moodys.com.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded the Issuer Default Rating and outstanding debt ratings of Beazer Homes USA Inc. and removed them from Rating Watch Negative. The downgrades were as follows: IDR, from B to B-minus; senior notes and convertible senior notes, from B-minus/RR5 to CCC-plus/RR5; and junior subordinated debt, from CCC/RR6 to CCC-minus/RR6. The downgrades reflect "the current difficult housing environment and Fitch's expectations that the housing environment remains difficult for the remainder of the year and that new-home activity will still be on the decline well into 2009," the rating agency said. They also reflect "negative trends in Beazer's operating margins, further deterioration in credit metrics ... and erosion in tangible net worth from noncash real estate charges," Fitch added. The companies can be found online at http://www.beazer.com and http://www.fitchratings.com.

Health Care REIT Inc., Toledo, Ohio, has priced a public offering of 7.0 million shares of common stock at $48 per share. The company said it plans to use the proceeds to invest in additional health care and senior housing properties. The underwriters have been given an option to buy up to $1.05 million additional shares to cover any overallotments. The joint book-running managers of the offering are Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Banc of America Securities LLC, UBS Investment Bank, and Merrill Lynch & Co. The real estate investment trust can be found on the Internet at http://www.hcreit.com.

First Financial Network Inc., Oklahoma City, has announced the offering of a $190 million loan portfolio consisting partly of commercial real estate loans from the recently failed ANB Bank, Bentonville, Ark. The portfolio is being marketed on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is the receiver for the failed bank. In addition to CRE loans, the portfolio consists of commercial and industrial loans and consumer loans that have been stratified into pools based on loan type, performance, collateral, and geographic concentration, First Financial said. Bids will be taken on Oct. 14. First Financial can be found on the Web at http://www.firstfinancialnet.com.

ECC Capital Corp., a real estate investment trust headquartered in Irvine, Calif., has reported a net loss of $68.7 million for the six months ended June 30. In a document posted on the company's website, ECC attributed the loss to high levels of delinquency and loss severity on mortgage loans held for investment. After realizing losses of $43.1 million in its mortgage portfolio for the six months ended June 30, ECC increased its loan loss allowance to $97.3 million, compared with $62.5 million at Dec. 31, 2007. It also cited a decline in the market value of its interest rate swaps and caps of $3.6 million for the six months ended June 30. Additionally, ECC was required to pay $2.5 million under its swap agreements, resulting in a loss on derivative instruments of $6.1 million for the six-month period. (For the first six months of 2007, ECC lost $62.3 million.) In a news release announcing the posting of the six-month 2008 data, ECC said that as it assesses its cost structure, "it cannot provide assurance that it will post third-quarter 2008 financial information." The company can be found online at http://www.ecccapital.com.

Columbia Bancorp, The Dalles, Ore., is shutting the in-house mortgage banking operation at its subsidiary Columbia River Bank. The closure will affect approximately 39 employees over the next 60 days as the unit winds down. "Columbia's decision to no longer operate an in-house mortgage lending service was necessary because of the uncertainty in the mortgage markets and the risk associated with the industry," explained Roger Christensen, president and chief executive of Columbia. "This will allow us to focus on our core business services, a central point of our management team's vision for the future." CRB has also fired 20 other employees and eliminated 15 others through attrition. Columbia lost $206,000 ($0.02 per share) in the second quarter, which included a loan loss provision of $5.7 million due to increased risk in its residential construction portfolio. The bank can be found online at http://www.columbiariverbank.com.

Twenty-five classes of notes issued by four collateralized debt obligations with exposure to subprime residential mortgage-backed securities have been downgraded by Fitch Ratings. All the downgraded classes were removed from Rating Watch Negative. The affected securities are as follows: nine classes from Norma CDO I Ltd., a hybrid cash and synthetic arbitrage CDO; six classes from GSC ABS CDO 2006-4u Ltd., a hybrid cash and synthetic arbitrage CDO; five classes from Fort Point Funding II Corp., a cash flow structured finance CDO; six classes from Straits Global ABS CDO I Ltd., a cash flow CDO; and five classes from Saybrook CBO II Ltd., a structured finance CDO. The downgrades were attributed to collateral deterioration in the portfolios, especially in subprime RMBS, or underlying exposure to subprime RMBS.

Wachovia Securities was the largest commercial and multifamily mortgage servicer as of midyear, with $434.3 billion in primary and master servicing volume, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. According to the MBA's midyear update, the other top commercial mortgage servicers were: Midland Loan Services/PNC Real Estate Finance ($273.8 billion), Capmark Finance ($258.3 billion), and Wells Fargo ($179.5 billion). The largest master and primary servicers of commercial/multifamily loans in U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and other asset-backed securities were Wachovia, Midland/PNC, Capmark, and Wells Fargo, the MBA reported. The largest Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac servicers were Midland/PNC, Wachovia, Deutsche Bank, and Capmark. The MBA can be found online at http://www.mortgagebankers.org.

First American Field Services and First American Real Estate Tax Service have announced the availability of a new vacant-property registration service aimed at helping lenders and servicers comply with changing municipal ordinances. The service identifies properties in a lender's servicing or real-estate-owned portfolio that require vacant-property registration and then manages the registration process, including the disbursement of fees. "As new ordinances are passed in various jurisdictions, our vacant-property registration database is updated and we are able to revise the registration information on behalf of our clients as needed," said Paul Dauterive, president of First American Field Services. ".... This new service reduces the lender's risk of compliance-related penalties by ensuring that all necessary properties remain properly registered throughout the default process." The First American Corp., the Dallas-based parent company of the two units, can be found online at http://www.firstam.com.