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| Dec 10, 2008 | Forecast: More Than 8 Million Foreclosures By 2012 | (Update 1: clarifies some numbers, adds color on subprime foreclosures) A recent Credit Suisse research and analytics report has predicted that 8.1 million homes — 16 percent of all mortgages — will be in foreclosure in the next four years,... |
| Dec 1, 2008 | Viewpoint: Add Rubin to the Who-Knew-Crew | Nobody should be allowed the “who knew?” defense when it comes to the current mortgage and financial crisis — least of all anyone with a regulatory background. It should be a rule, like the rule that says anyone who dug us into this foxhole... |
| Sep 21, 2008 | U.S. Taxpayers to Bail Out Foreign Debt Holders, Too? | A fact sheet released by Treasury officials Saturday evening, meant to answer questions about the most ambitious financial markets intervention in our nation’s history, has instead provided a rallying point for those who say the Paulson pla... |
| Sep 18, 2008 | Chart of the day | This pretty much says it all — spreads on A2/P2 nonfinancial commercial paper literally have blown up in a liquidity crisis that really is amazingly far-reaching. The spread covers high and low quality 30 day nonfinancial commercial paper, ... |
| Sep 17, 2008 | Some might call it socialist capitalism | (Update 1: Edited to clarify remarks on GE, GMAC) At least, Floyd Norris at the New York Times clearly would, taking some history into view:
The government Tuesday nationalized the American International Group, the financial giant that coul... |
| Sep 14, 2008 | Stunned here at HW | Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, Merrill, AIG decimated within a span of merely seven days. And rumors of more to follow this week. Wow. Our newsroom has been busy Sunday afternoon, and will be working overtime throughout the night, most likely. Be... |
| Sep 8, 2008 | WaMu Boots Killinger; OTS Takes Action | The latest victim of the mortgage crisis — no, not the GSEs — is Washington Mutual (WM) CEO Kerry Killinger, who helped turn the Seattle-based company into the nation’s largest thrift. WaMu said on Monday before market open that it has repl... |
| Jun 24, 2008 | Extra, Extra, Read All About It: GSEs Using Capital Wisely | A story at Bloomberg Tuesday takes a populist tack on a story we’ve covered pretty extensively here at Housing Wire for the past few months: that both Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) have yet to really make a huge dent in the new jum... |
| Jun 24, 2008 | Questions Over FHA Down Payment Assistance Programs Hit Mainstream | Industry participants that have been around for some time are likely familiar with the ongoing debate over seller-funded down payment assistance programs, a Federal Housing Administration program that allows borrowers to get into a home for... |
| Jun 4, 2008 | Ed McMahon could use some of that Publisher’s Clearinghouse money right about now | We’re not trying to make light of what is likely a tough situation — facing injury and long-term disability, leading to the imperilment of mortgage and home — but it’s a little bit easier when we’re talking about a multi-million dollar prop... |
| May 29, 2008 | Investors and Insurers, Finding Fraud | Here in the BuzzPost, we’ve been sounding the horn over the prevalence of mortgage fraud in recent weeks — witness an earlier discussion of Ambac’s education on the matter — and yesterday’s Wall Street Journal picked up a strong, smelly sce... |
| May 27, 2008 | Where will housing prices go next? | The biggest question on the minds of investors and industry participants isn’t exactly hard to divine right about now: where will housing price go? Have we reached a bottom? The reason is equally easy to discern, given the importance housin... |
| May 20, 2008 | A cocktail of fairy tales | Caroline Baum over at Bloomberg must be pandering for media visibility. There’s simply no other way to describe the disjointed and rambling piece published over at Bloomberg today — but, hey, it’s getting us to link into it, isn’t it? In th... |
| May 13, 2008 | BofA Sees Higher Losses on Home Equity Loans: Report | Bank of America Corp. (BAC) said Tuesday that it now expects losses on home equity loans to reach above estimates offered last month in the company’s first quarter earnings report, suggesting that the credit crunch that hit financial instit... |
| Apr 29, 2008 | Predatory borrowing, and recidivism | We’re probably not going to make a lot of friends on the consumer side with this, but more than a few analysts have asked us here at HW when we’re going to take up the issue of “predatory borrowing,” since the cards have pretty much been de... |
| Apr 24, 2008 | Ambac shocked to find fraud | HW’s publisher Paul Jackson penned a viewpoint piece that ran Wednesday, and the message in it was one that we think will become much clearer in the next 12 months — that fraud is a HUGE problem that has yet to be recognized in the current ... |
| Apr 11, 2008 | Brokers in denial | We just had to share with BuzzPost regulars that we received an avalanche of negative response to an earlier story we ran covering a CRL study that allegedly found that brokered mortgages were more costly for subprime borrowers than those l... |
| Apr 2, 2008 | Fannie Tightens Its Belt, Again | Fannie Mae on Wednesday said it was making changes to its automated underwriting system, Desktop Underwriter — the new changes, effective May 31, represent the latest round of tightening on the mortgage origination side. Clearly, Fannie is ... |
| Mar 27, 2008 | It’s always the weakest link | We’re not making this up. The Oregonian reported Thursday that it had obtained a memo distributed by at least some Chase account executives to brokers, detailing how to manipulate the company’s own automated underwriting software in order t... |
| Mar 26, 2008 | Viewpoint: IndyMac to Cease Reporting Raw Delinquency Statistics, but Why? | Calling so-called raw delinquency statistics “meaningless and misleading,” IndyMac chairman and CEO Mike Perry said late last week that the thrift — which lost $509 million in the fourth quarter and suspended its dividend amid increasing bo... |
| Mar 24, 2008 | Existing Home Sales Rose Unexpectedly in February | In perhaps a bit of good news, sales of existing homes increased in February, trumping most analysts’ forecasts. The National Association of Realtors said Monday that existing home sales surprisingly rose 2.9 percent to a seasonally-adjuste... |
| Mar 20, 2008 | Economic Think-Tank: No Question About It, We’re in a Recession | Perhaps the most widely-watched among economic analysts when it comes to recession is the Economic Cycle Research Institute, or ECRI. The group has correctly called the past two U.S. recessions, and most tend to have the view that the U.S. ... |
| Mar 18, 2008 | Stocks Rally on Speculation of Possible Historic Fed Rate Cut, But How Far Can the Fed Go? | Most of the financial news today is buzzing about the Dow’s 200+ point jump to open trading Tuesday, and attributing it to better-than-expected results from both Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. Sources that have spoken with Housing Wire ... |
| Mar 14, 2008 | Frank Proposes $300 Billion to Fund Short-Refis | House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank on Thursday announced new legislation that represents Capitol Hill’s latest attempt to stem a significant rise in mortgage foreclosures. Under the proposed plan, the Federal Housing A... |
| Mar 12, 2008 | Freddie Looks to Compete with Fannie on Conforming Jumbo Mortgages | Freddie Mac on Wednesday released its guidelines for conforming jumbos — and, yes, that’s what the GSE is formally calling the newly-and-temporarily conforming loans above the traditional lending limit. The guidelines at Freddie, interestin... |
| Mar 7, 2008 | Judge: Flat-Fee Arrangements in Foreclosures, Bankruptcies “Corrosive” to Practice of Law | Housing Wire recently covered a Texas lawsuit involving Countrywide and its foreclosure and bankruptcy management practices, in which the lender was found to be “bungling” but not acting in outright “bad faith.” The Calculated Risk blog’s T... |
| Mar 3, 2008 | Fruitcake on a 1004 | Tanta over at the Calculated Risk blog notes today that National City Corp. is apparently refusing to subordinate — in other words, refusing to keep its original second mortgage in a subordinate lien position when a borrower looks to refina... |
| Feb 14, 2008 | Freddie Mac Makes Changes in Bid to Boost Mortgage Insurers | Freddie Mac announced changes to its mortgage insurer eligibility rules in anticipation of pending downgrades to various mortgage insurers, and as a bid to help shore up needed capital at insurers now seeing claims accelerate amid increasin... |
| Feb 12, 2008 | IndyMac Loses $509 Million in Fourth Quarter, Suspends Dividend | IndyMac Bancorp, Inc. said Tuesday morning that it lost $509.1 million, or ($6.43) per share, during the recently-completed fourth quarter. The Q4 loss compares to net earnings of $72.2 million in the year-ago period. The quarterly loss dro... |
| Feb 7, 2008 | Schumer Vows a Full Court Press on Mortgage Industry Regulation | Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is making more than his fair share of headlines today by cranking up the heat on the mortgage industry at a Reuters-sponsored Regulation Summit in Washington. Beyond suggesting that the GSEs need to consider s... |
| Feb 4, 2008 | Scratch-and-Dent Specialist Launches Hedge Fund Targeting Distressed Mortgages | Not every mortgage business is feeling the heat as part of the industry-wide downturn. Houston-based Oxford Funding — whose slogan (Profiting in a Mortgage Meltdown) earned the attention of Time’s Justin Fox last week — said Monday that it ... |
| Feb 4, 2008 | ASF Update: Really, Really Bearish on Housing | (Editor’s note: Monday and Tuesday of this week, HW will be providing periodic live updates on the sights, sounds, and sentiments at the ASF 2008 conference in Las Vegas.) Having just taken in a morning session on the nation’s housing marke... |
| Feb 2, 2008 | Mortgage Market Roundup, Weekend Edition | Next week, I’ll be in Las Vegas for ASF 2008 — which ought to be a very interesting show to report on. There’s been plenty of discussion lately around what the future of securitization in the mortgage market will look like, and I’d expect t... |
| Jan 31, 2008 | Commentary: FAS 140, Bloomberg Columnists, and the Truth | Jonathan Weil at Bloomberg is getting more mileage out of a formerly obscure accounting rule than any financial columnist in recent memory; his latest coup d’état revisits a SEC clarification of the so-called “Q election” used by most secu... |
| Jan 28, 2008 | There’s a credit pull for that | CR over at the Calculated Risk blog tackles the newest meme among borrowers — walking away, even if loans are recourse, in order to get into a now-devalued (and cheaper) house. What’s amazing is that this can even happen; it’s not that hard... |
| Jan 27, 2008 | Tainted TBAs: Conforming Limit Increase May Increase Mortgage Rates | Via Rueters’ Al Yoon comes a perfect look at why the proposed hike to the conforming mortgage loan limit runs the risk of actually raising mortgage rates for everyone:
Potential damage to the “to-be-delivered” (TBA) market — the most active... |
| Jan 24, 2008 | Greenpoint Charge Stings Capital One’s Q4 Earnings | Capital One reported fourth quarter profit of $226.6 million after market close on Wednesday, or $.60 per share, down from $390.7 million, or $1.14, in the year-ago period. Rising losses on credit card loans were a chief culprit, although t... |
| Jan 24, 2008 | Security Capital Downgraded by Fitch; Second Insurer to Lose AAA Rating | Fitch Ratings on Thursday downgraded its second ‘AAA’-rated insurer, Security Capital Assurance Ltd. and its primary financial guaranty subsidiaries, cutting its rating five notches to ‘A’ on SCA’s XL Capital Assurance Inc. and XL Financial... |
| Jan 24, 2008 | Home Prices Post First Annual Decline in At Least 40 Years | (Update 1; added NAR data duration and conference call) Let’s start with the real news in today’s NAR existing-home sales report: the median existing single-family home price was $206,500 in December, down 6.5 percent from a year earlier. T... |
| Jan 23, 2008 | Regulators, Banks Meet on Bond Insurers | I’d wanted to use the headline “Counterparty Party,” but the Calculated Risk blog seems to already be on that wavelength … At any rate, banks and insurance regulators pow-wowed today in New York. The subject? What to do about the troubles n... |
| Jan 22, 2008 | Calif. Foreclosures Reach Highest Level in Fifteen Years | The number of mortgage default notices filed against California homeowners jumped to its highest level in more than fifteen years during the fourth quarter of 2007, a real estate information service reported Tuesday. Lending institutions se... |
| Jan 18, 2008 | Mortgage Market Roundup, Friday Edition | I think it’s safe to say this is the week we all got comfortable with bond insurers — it seemed like every time HW published one story about something that was taking place at one insurer, something else took place at another. Or even at th... |
| Jan 14, 2008 | Downey Financial: Accounting Rules Suck | Downey Financial — perhaps the best known of the option-ARM specialists, although there are others — put out a press release today that said the bank’s auditors, KPMG, are forcing them to book loan modifications as part of reported non-perf... |
| Jan 14, 2008 | Mortgage Market Roundup, Monday Edition | A start-of-the week roundup for everyone, so as always, feel free jump off where you’re interested most … What’s mine is yours: Regular HW readers know that I’m about to embark on running this site full time (just a few more days and I’ll b... |
| Jan 13, 2008 | Mortgage Market Roundup: Five Things to Know About the Countrywide/BofA Deal | With arguably the most important event in recent mortgage banking history taking place this past week, I thought I’d replace this week’s usual market roundup with a look at five key points to know about the Countrywide/Bank of America engag... |
| Jan 11, 2008 | Cleveland Follows Baltimore, Sues 21 Mortgage Lenders Over Subprime Loans | Following the example of Baltimore, who earlier this week unveiled a lawsuit against Wells Fargo for targeting minorities with high-cost subprime loans, the mayor of Cleveland has sued 21 different banks over their subprime lending practice... |
| Jan 11, 2008 | Citigroup, Merrill See Expected Write-Down Numbers Skyrocket | Trying to keep up with analysts as they handicap the fourth quarter write-downs we almost all know are coming from both Citigroup and Merrill Lynch is turning out to be an amusing pasttime. The numbers are getting pretty heady as we head in... |
| Jan 8, 2008 | Mortgage Market Roundup, Tuesday Edition | Facts? We don’t need no stinking facts!: The NAR’s public awareness campaign for 2008 was unveiled this past week, and it showcases a new Web site — http://www.housingmarketfacts.com. A visit to the site shows numerous misspelled words, suc... |
| Jan 8, 2008 | Commentary: On Unintended Consequences and the Foreclosure Machine | If you do nothing else today, read this post by Tanta over at Calculated Risk. All of it. In it, you’ll see a very thorough debunking of the myth that says everything in mortgage servicing can be automated, as well as a debunking of the sin... |
| Jan 4, 2008 | Regulators Broaden Mortgage Probe: Were Retail Investors Playing with IO Strips? | Both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported Friday morning that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority — FINRA for short — is investigating securities brokerage firms’ marketing and sale of collateralized mortgage obligations. ... |
| Jan 4, 2008 | $163.5 Million CRE Deal Goes Through; Risk-Taking in Commercial Real Estate? | A bit of deviation from HW’s usual fare, but an interesting press statement late yesterday caught my eye — the New York office of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, L.P. said that it had arranged a $163.5 million acquisition and pre-development loan... |
| Dec 28, 2007 | Mortgage Market Roundup | It’s been a short week, but nonetheless a surprisingly busy one. Below are some interesting stories and discussions that can hopefully hold some of your interest over this weekend – jump off wherever you’re interested most. Missing the bigg... |
| Dec 28, 2007 | New Home Sales Weakest Since April 1995 | Sales of new homes fell to their lowest level in more than 12 years in November, as the nation’s housing crisis continued unabated. Purchase volume fell 9 percent on a revised monthly basis in November to 647,000, the Commerce Department sa... |
| Dec 23, 2007 | Mortgage Market Roundup | As the holiday season is here in full swing, I want to take a quick minute to wish each reader a very joyous season; I know it’s been a tough year for some, a record year for others — whichever camp you’re in, I hope you can find time to sp... |
| Dec 21, 2007 | The Changing Ethic of Homeowership? | The Wall Street Journal has a thoughtful look at how the creative lending boom has perhaps fundamentally altered the way many Americans view homeownership. It’s a change that has caught even Bank of America’s CEO Kenneth Lewis off-guard to ... |
| Dec 15, 2007 | Mortgage Market Roundup | Before getting to some important items for your weekend reading, I wanted to thank everyone who has voiced their support for Housing Wire — both in the past week, and pretty much every week. I’ve recieved messages like the below from many o... |
| Dec 6, 2007 | It’s Official: Bush Announces Subprime ARM Freeze | I’ve been providing some very in-depth advance coverage of the subprime ARM freeze, ahead of the formal announcement made today by President Bush. HW readers were not likely surprised by any of what they heard, and likely know more about th... |
| Nov 30, 2007 | Mortgage Market Roundup: A Slippery Slope | Caution, Slippery Slope Ahead: The biggest story of this week broke today, regarding the Treasury Department’s efforts to establish a widespread bailout of troubled subprime borrowers — an effort that is allegedly going to be inked before t... |
| Nov 26, 2007 | The Mess that Boyko Made: Pot, Meet Kettle | There has been quite a brouhaha made in the media out of a recent ruling by a federal judge in Ohio — on October 31, Judge Christopher A. Boyko of Federal District Court in Cleveland dismissed 14 foreclosure cases involving Deutsche Bank as... |
| Nov 22, 2007 | Mortgage Market Roundup, Thanksgiving Edition | Happy Thanksgiving: For those HW readers here in the US, warm wishes for a wonderful holiday — we’ve actually had some of that so-called “wintry mix” in the DFW area today. I’m thankful for many things this year, family and friends at the t... |
| Nov 15, 2007 | Barclays Discloses $2.67 Billion Subprime-related Write Down | The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Barclays PLC made its own visit to the so-called confessional this morning, disclosing $2.67 billion in subprime driven write downs (hat tip, Calculated Risk). From the story:
Barclays ... |
| Nov 7, 2007 | WaMu: Third-Party Appraisal Contract Stipulates Vendor Liability | Washingon Mutual issued a press release tonight that would seem to shed light on the bank’s likely strategy should New York AG Andrew Cuomo’s crusade against alleged appraisal fraud at First American business unit eAppraiseIT prove to have ... |
| Nov 6, 2007 | IndyMac Reports $202 Million Loss in Third Quarter | IndyMac Bancorp, Inc. today reported a net loss of $202.7 million, or $2.77 per share, for the third quarter — swinging into the red after reporting net earnings of $86.2 million, or $1.19 per share, in the year-ago period. The loss vastly ... |
| Oct 24, 2007 | More than Subprime Resets: The Real Meaning of Two Waves | Regular HW readers likely know that I’ve referenced two looming waves of resets as it relates to the mortgage market, although I haven’t gone into a ton of detail covering what this means just yet. I will now. To start, a picture is worth a... |
| Oct 19, 2007 | New Bill Would Allow Borrowers to Raid Retirement Savings to Avoid Foreclosure | U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) today introduced the Home Ownership Mortgage Emergency Act (cleverly, the HOME Act), which would allow troubled borrowers under certain conditions to make penalty-free withdrawals from their 401K or other re... |
| Oct 7, 2007 | Commentary: Framing the Consumer Bankruptcy Mortgage Cram-Down Debate | Today, one of my favorite bloggers in this planet or any other — that would be Tanta over at CR — took on the issue of whether or not federal bankruptcy law should be amended to allow bankruptcy courts to modify a borrower’s mortgage while ... |
| Oct 4, 2007 | U.S. House Passes Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Bill Targeted at Short Sellers, Foreclosures | The U.S. House of Representatives passed another bill targeting troubled homeowners today, overwhelmingly approving the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act (H.R. 3648) by a vote of 386-27. The House Committee on Ways and Means had original... |
| Oct 3, 2007 | Countrywide Speculation: Analyst Predicts $4 Billion in Loan Write-Downs | Since everyone else is busy blogging about Countrywide’s internal pride initiatives today, I thought I’d focus elsewhere. It’s actually buried in the Wall Street Journal article that focuses most of its word count buzzing about a former foo... |
| Sep 16, 2007 | Mortgage Market Roundup, Sept. 16 | It’s been another busy week in the mortgage markets, as readers of this blog know. But there were plenty of stories I didn’t have time to highlight this week — so I’m going to take some time to highlight some coverage I’ve seen in the media... |
| Aug 23, 2007 | The NY Times Misses the Mark — Badly — on Loan Modifications, Countrywide | It looks like Tanta at CR is on this story as well, but after my earlier post on loan modifications today, I felt compelled to highlight some pretty bad journalism from Gretchen Morgenson over at the New York Times. The story (“Assurances o... |
| Aug 23, 2007 | Calculated Risk: Just What Kind of Deal Did Countrywide Get? | A whole lot of Countrywide discussion today. There is some very interesting commentary from the folks over at Calculated Risk tonight, who speculate that the $2 billion invested in Countrywide by Bank of America might potentially be in the ... |
| Aug 19, 2007 | Weekend Mortgage Market Roundup, and My Own Thoughts on Where This is Headed | Given how busy the past week has been, there are so many stories out there that I simply didn’t have time to cover in full depth. Here’s a look at some items that didn’t get to HW this week, but in any other week probably would have … Moody... |
| Aug 15, 2007 | Freddie to the Rescue: Alt-A Purchase Commitment Means Additional Liquidity | Hat tip to Blown Mortgage’s Morgan Brown, who forwarded me a copy of a press advisory yesterday from Freddie Mac regarding the GSE’s move to inject additional liquidity into the troubled Alt-A lending market. In the statement, senior vice p... |
| Aug 15, 2007 | Mortgage Market Round Up | There are a few stories percolating on my “to-do” list — as you probably know, there is plenty to cover right about now — so I’m going to take you on a tour of what’s out there. Jump off wherever you feel interested … Brokers being blacklis... |
| Aug 14, 2007 | In the Crosshairs Today: Thornburg Mortgage | Important update: The IMB Report, IndyMac’s blog, has posted a copy of a letter from Thornburg to its brokers, which says the company is temporarily not funding any new business. Four analysts jumped ship on ultra high-end mortgage lender T... |
| Aug 5, 2007 | SFAS 140: Worth Your Sunday Read | Sure, you could read the majors today over your morning coffee and get the same story about Johnny Homeowner who really wants to sell his house or make his mortgage payment but just can’t because that payment just got too big too quickly. Y... |
| Aug 3, 2007 | Clayton Takes Subprime Hit | Clayton Holdings, Inc., mostly known for its mortgage analytics and secondary market due diligence services, reported a second quarter loss of $400,000 this morning, compared to net earnings of $2.4 million in the year-ago period. Revenue f... |
| Jul 31, 2007 | IndyMac Net Drops 57 Percent | IndyMac posted second quarter results this morning, which showed that the Alt-A specialist is feeling the heat from a continued downturn in the housing market. The company reported earnings of $44.6 million in the second quarter of 2007, do... |
| Jul 19, 2007 | Wamu Makes Changes; CIT Exits | Reinforcing an email I’d received from a HW reader yesterday, WaMu said in its earnings call that it’s taking some drastic steps towards improving the performance of its subprime loans:
Starting immediately, homeowners will have to meet str... |
| Jun 26, 2007 | S&P: Alt-A ‘Deteriorating’ | File this under “not good:” Standard & Poor’s issued a statement today outlining growing concern over the Alt-A mortgage market, saying that “there are strong — and growing — indications of deteriorating performance in the 2006 vintage.... |
| Jun 21, 2007 | Brookstreet Folds Under CMO Margin Calls | From the OC Register’s resident mortgage blogger Matthew Padilla (he gets paid to do this stuff!), broker dealer Brookstreet Securities Corp. was forced to close down today, laying 100 off as bets on collaterized mortgage obligations at the... |
| Jun 20, 2007 | Update: Even More on Bear’s Hedge Fund Trouble | Adding to the subprime fallout in the bond markets, the Wall Street Journal today updates the soap opera that has become Bear Stearns mortgage-backed hedge funds:
Two big hedge funds at Bear Stearns Cos. were close to being shut down last n... |
| Jun 19, 2007 | GMAC Gets New Boss, Sort Of | A number of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, are reporting this morning that former BofA CFO Al de Molina has taken the helm of private-equity giant Cerberus’ financial-service portfolio holdings. Cerberus owns a majority s... |
| Jun 7, 2007 | Bear Stearns At Center Of New Subprime Firestorm | Reuters reported today on a Wall Street Journal story that said hedge fund investors are up in arms over moves made at Bear Stearns, which critics say are evidence that the Wall Street giant is trying to manipulate a large part of the secon... |
| Jun 5, 2007 | Introducing the Newest Form of Fraud – And it’s Legal (For Now) | A reader forwarded me a story yesterday than just had my jaw dropping — borrowers can apparently rent someone else’s credit to raise their own credit score, essentially using a loophole in today’s credit rating system to their advantage. Im... |
| May 25, 2007 | Was Mortgage Broker Fraud Rampant During the Boom? | News today out of Fort Wayne, Indiana shows a mortgage broker accused of being personally responsible for some $5.5 million in fraudulent loans and 150 foreclosures:
A federal grand jury has indicted a mortgage broker on wire fraud charges ... |
| May 13, 2007 | Foreclosure, Default, Delinquency, REO — All Mixed Up | If I’ve learned anything from reading the often wildly-entertaining posts by Tanta over at Calculated Risk, it’s that she doesn’t tolerate fools very well. And the thing is, very few people really understand the inner workings of the mortga... |
| May 7, 2007 | Now It’s Starting to Get Fun | Hat tip to Calculated Risk for this story at the Washington Post, which was just too good not to also post over here.
Maggie Hardiman cringed as she heard the salesmen knocking the sides of desks with a baseball bat as they walked through h... |
| May 4, 2007 | Game Over: New Century Won’t Be Bought | News broke late yesterday that New Century will shutter the rest of its business, laying off the remaining 2,000 employees it had been keeping in hopes of finding a buyer. Bloomberg reported yesterday that company officials finally conceded... |
| May 1, 2007 | Understanding the Economics of Loan Loss Reserves Isn’t Rocket Science | Tanta over at Calculated Risk has an interesting take on a New York Times article that attempted to proffer a take on gain-on-sale accounting techniques and how corporate misdeeds inflated earnings and led to the downfall of both Enron and ... |
| Apr 30, 2007 | American Home: Which Way is Up? | American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. released its first-quarter earnings report today, which was pretty much what any seasoned market observer would have expected: an operating loss, downward revision of yearly earnings outcomes, and a m... |
| Apr 19, 2007 | Money, Meet Mouth: Freddie to Buy $20 Billion in Subprime Loans | Editor’s update: Perhaps the best analysis of this I’ve seen of this news is over at Calculated Risk. Be sure to read what’s been written over there to get some perspective on this, especially if you work in the mortgage industry. Freddie M... |
| Apr 9, 2007 | Commentary: Alt-A Fears Realized | Time away: Given that I’m on holiday today, and that it’s the day after Easter (read: slow news day), I decided I’d post my commentary on Monday for HW readers. And I’ll make up for being lazy on the news with an extra-long column. Merrill ... |
| Jan 20, 2007 | The Kitchen Sink for Jan. 20 & 21 | Welcome to another edition of the Kitchen Sink! Each weekend, while business news takes a breather, Housing Wire highlights interesting and newsworthy stories appearing in media outlets throughout the country as well as interesting blog dis... |
| Jan 15, 2007 | Announcing the 2007 REBA Winners! | After counting, recounting, and counting some more — we’re pleased to announce the winners of Housing Wire’s first annual Real Estate Blogging Awards! Each REBA winner will receive a $25 Visa gift card or a $25 iTunes gift card. We’re posti... |
| Dec 30, 2006 | The Kitchen Sink for Dec 30-Jan 1 | Welcome to the Kitchen Sink for this long New Year’s weekend! In each weekend’s Kitchen Sink, HW highlights key housing coverage and opinions from media outlets throughout the U.S., as well as key insight from housing blogs across the Web. ... |