Originations

Jeffrey Adler has been promoted to executive vice president of property operations at Apartment Investment and Management Co., a real estate investment trust based in Denver.Before joining AIMCO two years ago, Mr. Adler was employed by Progressive Insurance for 10 years. The REIT also reported that its board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.60 per share on its class A common stock. The apartment REIT can be found on the Web at http://www.aimco.com.

Market conditions in the apartment sector improved in the fourth quarter, as all four indices used by the National Multi Housing Council's quarterly survey stood above an important threshold for the first time in the survey's nearly five-year history.The Survey of Apartment Market Conditions found that the indices -- the Market Tightness Index, the Sales Volume Index, the Equity Financing Index, and the Debt Financing Index -- all stood above 50, which means that more respondents saw improving conditions than saw worsening conditions. "The January survey results provide further evidence that the worst may be over for the apartment industry," said Mark Obrinsky, the NMHC's chief economist and vice president of research. "There have been several signs of improvement in several months. The question now is whether these improvements will be sustained." The trade group can be found online at http://www.nmhc.org.

Consumer Direct of America, a mortgage brokerage consolidator based in Las Vegas, has announced that it will open a title insurance subsidiary in Atlanta.The operation, which will be headquartered in Consumer Direct's Atlanta banking office, will provide title insurance services to the company's mortgage branch system. The company said the subsidiary will allow Consumer Direct to insure its mortgage loans and add an additional 1%-2% to its revenue stream. "We intend to integrate the title insurance products into our branch production operations during 2004," said Michael A. Barron, chief executive officer of Consumer Direct. "By adding the title insurance products, we add a much greater level of control to the closings of our loans."

Doug Duncan, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association, says he expects the federal government to revise employment data upward soon, and that could portend an increase in the 10-year Treasury yield and mortgage rates.Speaking at an MBA-sponsored presentation to analysts at the New York Stock Exchange, Mr. Duncan said he believes the Labor Department will revise payroll numbers upward on Feb. 6, a move that could put a definitive end to the dip in rates that prevailed during most of January and generated additional refinancing activity. "This was a sweet spot for people who missed it last June," Mr. Duncan told MortgageWire after the meeting. Most economic data suggest that employment has started growing, but payroll numbers have not reflected that yet, leading Mr. Duncan to believe the numbers are likely to be raised, he said. The MBA can be found online at http://www.mortgagebankers.org.

Johnson Capital, Irvine, Calif., has opened an office in New York City that will do commercial mortgage loan sales and syndication, with Daniel Lisser and William Nichols as managing directors and co-heads of the company.Mr. Lisser was previously head of the mortgage sales group at The Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group, and Mr. Nichols was the president and founder of RE-Portal, according to Johnson Capital, a real estate investment advisory firm. They will both work on providing financial institutions with the right pricing for commercial mortgage loan portfolios in the secondary market, and liquidity for the loans. "There is a great demand by lenders and investors alike for more loan liquidity in the secondary market, especially outside of the CMBS conduits," said Guy Johnson, president of Johnson Capital.

IndyMac Bancorp Inc., Pasadena, Calif., the holding company for IndyMac Bank, has reported record net earnings of $171.3 million ($3.01 per share) for 2003, up 19% from earnings in 2002.Mortgage loan production totaled a record $30 billion, up 44% from the volume recorded the year before, IndyMac said. For the fourth quarter, the company reported earnings of $43.3 million ($0.75 per share), up 22% from the earnings recorded a year earlier. Mortgage loan production totaled $6.3 billion. "In line with our expectations, in this quarter alone we increased our share of the single-family residential mortgage market by 44% and grew our earning assets 13% with strong adjustable-rate, single-family mortgage production," said Michael W. Perry, IndyMac's chairman and chief executive officer. IndyMac declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share, up from $0.20 per share in the previous quarter. The company can be found online at http://www.indymacbank.com.

Union Financial Bancshares Inc., Union, S.C., has reported a loss of $1.2 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31 as a result of a balance sheet restructuring.The restructuring consisted of the sale of $31.3 million in mortgage-backed securities at a loss of $695,000; the prepayment of $5.0 million of Federal Home Loan Bank advances at a penalty of $381,000; and the writedown of $100,000 of mortgage servicing rights (because the company no longer services mortgage loans). Union Financial was able to prepay the FHLBank borrowings as well as not renew an additional $6.0 million in borrowings because of an increase in deposits of $22.7 million. The reason for the restructuring was the conversion of its Provident Community Bank subsidiary from a thrift to a national bank.

Stewart Title Co., Houston, has announced the formation of Stewart Realty Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary that will develop and market a bundle of information services, technology applications, and real estate- and mortgage-related services for realty firms.Travis Wright, a 30-year veteran of the real estate and mortgage banking industries, will be president and chief executive officer of the new company. Kelly Hawkins, a 15-year veteran of Stewart, will serve as vice president and chief operating officer. "Stewart Realty Solutions will be our vehicle to manage and grow specific realty-focused products and services, including our flagship product, SureClose transaction management," said Stewart Morris Jr., president of Stewart Title. The company can be found online at http://www.stewart.com.

C. Paul Sandifur Jr. has resigned as chairman, president, and chief executive of Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Inc., Spokane, Wash., citing a desire to help the company put recent controversies behind it.Metropolitan is in a fight for survival as a going entity. Investors in securities issued by the company and one of its affiliates have filed a class action lawsuit, and the company's auditor, Ernst & Young, has resigned because it said it could no longer rely on the representations of management. Moreover, the Securities and Exchange Commission has started an informal inquiry. In a statement, Mr. Sandifur said Metropolitan "is entering a crucial stage, and I offered my resignation in an effort to try to put the distractions and controversies of the past year behind us." He remains a member of the company's board. Replacing Mr. Sandifur as acting chairman, president, and CEO is Irv Marcus. Mr. Marcus is a former officer of the company, most recently in 1995 when he retired as senior vice president.

Banks and thrifts are expecting to see a big jump in home equity lending this year, according a real estate lending survey by America's Community Bankers.The 11 annual real estate survey found that 56% of the 403 respondents expect loan volumes to decline in 2004 as refinancings slow, while 64% expect that consumers will turn to home equity loans. As interest rates rise, "people will use home equity loans to tap into the equity in their homes," ACB executive vice president Robert Davis said. The survey also shows that respondents divided their loan sales equally between Fannie Mae (33%) and Freddie Mac (32%). Conduits and wholesalers captured 22% of secondary-market sales, with the Federal Home Loan Banks netting a 7% share and Ginnie Mae 3%. Only 36% of the respondents expect to reduce their secondary-market sales in 2004. Mr. Davis said he expects the FHLBanks to increase their market share this year, as purchase mortgages dominate originations.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 5.68% for the week ending Jan. 30 from 5.64% the previous week, according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey.The average 15-year fixed mortgage rate inched up from 4.95% to 4.97%, and the average rate for one-year Treasury-indexed adjustable-rate mortgages rose from 3.56% to 3.59%. Fees and points averaged 0.7 of a point for fixed-rate mortgages and 0.6 of a point for ARMs. "Mortgage rates were basically unchanged leading up to the [Federal Open Market Committee's] announcement that opened the door to the possibility the Fed would raise rates sooner than expected," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's chief economist. "Following the policy statement, bond yields shot up, taking mortgage rates with them, raising the prospect that mortgage rates will be even higher next week." A year ago, the average 30-year and 15-year fixed rates were 5.90% and 5.28%, respectively, and the average one-year ARM rate was 3.89%, Freddie Mac said. Freddie Mac can be found online at http://www.freddiemac.com.

The chief operating officer of E-Loan resigned on Thursday, a day in which the company revealed that fourth-quarter earnings plunged 95% and its stock skidded by as much as 20%.E-Loan, based in Pleasanton, Calif., said it accepted the resignation of president and chief operating officer Joe Kennedy "effective immediately," noting that it has already hired a replacement for the COO position. In the fourth quarter, E-Loan posted net earnings of just $200,000, compared with $5 million a year earlier. For the year E-Loan earned $22.6 million, an increase of 113% from its earnings in 2002. At MortgageWire's deadline, E-Loan could not be reached for comment concerning Mr. Kennedy's resignation. In a statement, company chief executive officer Chris Larsen said: "Although we delivered record annual results for the full year 2003, the fourth quarter of 2003 was a challenging transition for us. The difficult conditions the industry experienced in the fourth quarter -- the rapid decline in refinance demand coupled with industry overcapacity leading to intense price competition -- were more severe than we anticipated."

Tenet Healthcare Corp., Santa Barbara, Calif., has announced that it is seeking buyers for 27 hospitals that it plans to divest in a major restructuring effort.The company plans to focus its "financial and management resources" on 69 hospitals in 13 states. The properties to be divested include 19 in California and eight others in Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Texas, the company said. Trevor Fetter, Tenet's president and chief executive officer, said the company had come to this decision after completing a review of the short- and long-term prospects for all its hospital properties, which enabled them to "assess the realistic potential of all our hospitals without the distortion caused by the unusually large Medicare outlier payments that resulted from the company's prior pricing strategy." The company said it expects to receive net proceeds of about $600 million from the divestiture, mostly in the form of tax benefits. Citigroup Global Markets and Banc of America Securities are the joint advisers for the sale.

Freddie Mac has announced the recent purchase of an $85 million portfolio of mortgages that enabled a new Freddie Mac borrower to finance eight housing campuses for seniors in Pennsylvania.The portfolio of eight cross-collateralized and cross-defaulted mortgages was purchased from Holliday Fenoglio Fowler/Lend Lease Mortgage Capital. Freddie Mac said the mortgages have an interest rate based on the 30-day Freddie Mac Reference Bill index, which historically has traded at a discount relative to the London interbank offered rate. Each has a 10-year term and a 25-year amortization period. "By choosing a Freddie Mac Capped ARM to finance their seniors housing portfolio, the borrower was able to achieve what is perhaps the lowest cost of capital available in the seniors housing market," said Jack Killough of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler. Freddie Mac can be found on the Web at http://www.freddiemac.com.

Zacks.com, the online component of Zacks Investment Research, Chicago, has given Radian Group Inc., Philadelphia, its #5 (Strong Sell) rank.Zacks noted that Radian had a tough quarter, with charges to earnings because of a loan-loss provision due to a Conseco manufactured housing deal and the closing of RadianExpress.com. "With such a tough quarter in the past, Radian should be in a better position moving forward," Zacks said. "But to be on the safe side, investors may want to hold off a bit longer on increasing exposure with the company until its earnings estimates gain more upside momentum."

Class B-8 of DLJ Commercial Mortgage Corp. commercial mortgage pass-through certificates, series 2000-CKP1, has been downgraded from C to D by Fitch Ratings. In addition, the ratings on 13 other classes in the deal were affirmed. Fitch said the downgrade was the result of $12.1 million in realized losses due to the disposition of two loans: The Genesis, collateralized by two multifamily properties in Dallas that were real estate owned, and Big Kmart-Chicago, secured by a single-tenant Kmart property in Chicago on which the lease was rejected by the bankrupt retailer. The rating agency can be found on the Web at http://www.fitchratings.com.

Government Properties Trust Inc., Omaha, Neb., has priced an initial public offering of 16.8 million shares of common stock at $10 per share.The net proceeds of the offering, totaling approximately $158.9 million, will be used to repay debt and buy additional properties, the company said. Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. was the book-running lead manager of the offering. The underwriters have been granted an option to buy up to 2.52 million additional shares to cover any overallotments. Government Properties, which said it will elect to be taxed as a real estate investment trust, invests in single-tenant properties under long-term lease to the U.S. government.

Mark A. Wallace has been named senior vice president and chief financial officer of Health Care Property Investors, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based real estate investment trust.He will replace James G. Reynolds as CFO, who will remain with the company as an executive vice president focusing on business development, the company said. Mr. Wallace was previously executive vice president and CFO of Tremont Corp. and TIMET, its principal operating subsidiary, the REIT said. The company can be found online at http://www.hcpi.com.

Countrywide Financial Corp., Calabasas, Calif., originated more home loans than any other lender in the fourth quarter, company chairman and chief executive officer Angelo Mozilo told investors Tuesday on a conference call.Countrywide produced $76 billion of home loans in the fourth quarter, edging out industry rivals Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual. Mr. Mozilo has long cited regaining the top market share as a goal. Moreover, he's not done setting ambitious targets. He said Countrywide aims to have a 30% market share in the loan origination business by 2008, and the company also hopes to service $1.5 trillion of home loans by that time. Mr. Mozilo said Countrywide already has created the technology infrastructure to manage a portfolio of that size. The company has used the refinancing boom as an opportunity "to build lasting foundations for future growth," he said.

New York City's anti-predatory-lending law was invalidated in a decision issued Monday by a Manhattan Supreme Court judge.Justice Michael D. Stallman, who permanently enjoined enforcement of Local Law 36, said the law is regulatory and therefore pre-empted by state and federal laws governing the banking industry. The plaintiffs argued that state banking law amply protects borrowers, because it imposes severe penalties for predatory lending practices -- the very conduct also targeted by Local Law 36 -- and in addition gives borrowers substantial legal rights and defenses in the face of unlawful high-cost home loans. Thomas L. McMahon, general counsel for the New York City Council, said the law "was not enacted as a regulatory measure, but as an exercise of the city's fundamental right to decide whom we do business with." The council is reviewing the decision, and over the next few days it will decide whether to appeal.