To Our Clients, Colleagues and Friends: We were on a panel recently with a person from HUD.  We asked her how many consumer complaints come from actual consumers, and she said that the overwhelming number of complaints is from mortgage bankers ratting on their competitors.  Nice.  But all’s fair in love and war, right?  We [...]

[Read more →]

Fannie, Freddie Shares Rally; Nationalization Fears Ease - PAUL JACKSON - You know what, maybe we were all a little premature on this nationalization talk. - housingwire ————       PIMCO’s September 2008 Global Central Bank Focus, “In the Fullness of Time” by Paul McCulley, is now available at PIMCO .. The most important conclusion, [...]

[Read more →]

I know that I’ve been in the mortgage banking business too long when my children start using the trendy mortgage-banker phrases. The other day I asked my daughter to clean up her room, and she replied, “Dad, let’s circle back on this tomorrow – I have other things to do. And then we can close [...]

[Read more →]

Fannie Mae (FNM) - One Man’s Opinion - Thomas Kee -  The government must step in to protect the solvency of these companies. -  Stock Traders Daily  ———— National Trend of Home Price Declines Continued through the First Half of 2008 According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite Home Price Indices - Standard and Poors ————    [...]

[Read more →]

What is the Thursday before a Labor Day weekend like? Well, besides office staffs around the nation wondering if they’re going to be able to leave early Friday afternoon, locks are generally slow. Many agents don’t want to lose three days of underwriting/processing time on a short-term lock, so they decide to wait until the [...]

[Read more →]

  Burdened by Mortgages, Lehman’s Options Narrow - Jenny Anderson - NY Times ———— Housing Rebound Unlikely Before 2009, HUD Chief Says - Alison Vekshin - Bloomberg ———— C.A.R. July 2008 Sales and Price Report - Home sales increased 43.4 percent in July in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the [...]

[Read more →]

The Week Ahead in the Capital Markets August 25, 2008 The only news worth printing in these dog days of summer concerns Fannie and Freddie. The blogs abound with examples of how the agencies have become worth less than many lesser known companies. Bloomberg quotes a former adviser to China’s central bank: “It would be [...]

[Read more →]

(If you only want to read good news, skip to another paragraph.) It appears that, as the summer winds down, agents and brokers are taking a look at their pipelines. It seems that at many originators, a strong a June & July has been followed by a slightly weak August, funding-wise. Locks are generally down, [...]

[Read more →]

  VIDEO: Take A Load Off Fannie - youtube ———— has case details - Subprime Litigation: A Glimpse of the End Game? - Kevin LaCroix - The 2007 settlement of an Ontario securities class action may suggest the eventual direction of many of the lawsuits in the current subprime and credit crisis-related litigation wave. Even [...]

[Read more →]

Agents enjoy talking about the great the loans are that are being originated now, and “Why wouldn’t investors want to buy them?” On the flip side, this is just what mortgage investors don’t want to see: headline stories about how mortgage fraud is still going strong. http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/25/real_estate/soaring_mortgage_fraud/?postversion=2008082606 Here is more information on down payment assistance [...]

[Read more →]