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Big Changes Coming to MortgageNewsClips Soon – Stay Tuned

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AIG Changes, Hole at Northern Rock, 2009, Loans R Us, Scapegoats?

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AIG Changes MI Eligibility Rules; Will Exclude Majority of Subprime Borrowers – housingwire

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£53 Billion Hole In Northern Rock – An investigation into Northern Rock shows £53bn of mortgages owned by off shore company. – globaleconomicanalysis

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Subprime mess may last into 2009 – Chicago Tribune

Soft RE Market Through 2012? – Coppedge look at this chart

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Loans R Us – It’s not just companies like Citi and Merrill that have exposure to the credit markets. A surprising number of manufacturers have drifted into financial services. – Forbes

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Ratings Agencies: Villians or Scapegoats? by Todd Kenyon – vestopia.com

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3 Articles by Felix Salmon:

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1. Why Are ARMs So Expensive? – portfolio.com

2. Why The Safest Banks Saw the Biggest Losses – … The reason is that most of the pain has been felt not by institutions taking on aggressive risk positions, but rather by institutions who have seen the value of AAA-rated securities fall out from underneath them. … – Portfolio.com

3. Leveraged Super Senior Trades and the Liquidity Put – … A liquidity put is really nothing more than a CP backstop. … The problem with these CDOs is exactly the same as the problem with SIVs (or, for that matter, with banks in general): that the structure’s assets have a much longer duration than its liabilities. If the CDO or the SIV can’t roll over its ABCP, then the sponsoring bank is in trouble, since it invariably has agreed to buy that CP if no one else will do so. … – Portfolio.com

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Bond Insurers – 3 Articles

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1. Natixis’s Bond Insurer to Get $1.5 Billion in Capital (Update6) – Bloomberg

2. FGIC May Get Capital After Natixis Rescues Bond Unit (Update1) – Bloomberg

3. Scary- – Bond Insurer ACA is in trouble. ACA made it possible for large street firms to do CDO deals “off balance sheet”, and obtain AAA ratings for the deals. If ACA goes down, these street firms will have to put the collateral back on their books and mark it to market – at today’s lower prices. This marking could cause SIVs also to revalue lower – a possible spiraling efect. – Bloomberg

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Miscellaneous: .

Countrywide is now trading at a price/book ratio of 0.39. (thanks Joe) – see the latest data at yahoo

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Quant Funds & The August Market Turmoil – John Mauldin’s Outside the Box E-Letter – investorsinsight

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First American CoreLogic Launches List Marketing Solution, Provides Access to Borrower Information – housingwire

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October Housing Starts: Is There Finally Light at the End of the Tunnel? – … We have not hit a bottom [in housing],” Keith Hembre, chief economist at FAF Advisors in Minneapolis, told Reuters. “We need to see starts fall to a one-million unit rate, or roughly a 20 percent drop from current levels, before building activities stabilize. And we need to see that rate for about one to two years – CapitalSpectator

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Fannie & Freddie Clobbered Over the Need to Raise Capital – by Michael Shedlock seeking alpha

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GM Says It Has ‘No Further Obligation’ to Fund GMAC – Bloomberg

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Home Prices Decline in One Third of U.S. Metro Areas – Bloomberg

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20 things that can alter the value of your home – BankRate.com

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