Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Two Gallants Video for “Despite What You’ve Been Told” featured on YouTube

  Published: November 15, 2007, 6:44 pm

  Tags: Music, Despite What You 039ve Been Told, Saddle Creek, Two Gallants, Youtube, Accomplishment, Featured, Front, Page, Great

  YouTube is a Web site that you may have heard of, but Two Gallants is a band you may not have, and if so, you should remedy that right away. Being featured on the front page of YouTube isn’t a great accomplishment in and of itself, but it’s neat when they pick something with merit. [...]

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• Fremont Faces Default Under Loan Purchase Contracts

  Published: March 4, 2008, 5:24 pm

  Tags: Featured Front, Featured Secondary, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  Beleaguered Fremont General Corp. said Tuesday that it had received default notices from two unnamed third parties that had purchased a total of $3.15 billion of residential subprime mortgages from the lender last March. The former subprime lending giant had sold the loans under terms requiring it to maintain a tangible net worth of at least $250

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• Bair: 2008 Will be Challenging Year' for Banks

  Published: March 4, 2008, 4:55 pm

  Tags: Featured Front, Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  In wide-ranging remarks delivered today to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Sheila Bair said that the banking industry faces some strong challenges during 2008 as problems in the housing and credit markets are likely to strain banking operations nationwide. “We expect 2008

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• MGIC Plans Stock Sale to Bolster Capital

  Published: March 4, 2008, 12:31 pm

  Tags: Featured Front, Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default, Capital Raising, Insurance, Mgic, Stock Sale

  MGIC Investment Corp. said Tuesday that it had filed plans to issue additional shares of common stock with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in a bid to raise new capital for its mortgage insurance arm. Fitch Ratings warned on February 25 that MGIC — along with other mortgage insurers — needed to bolster capital in order for its

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• Fed Chief Says Lenders Need to Write Off Mortgage Principal

  Published: March 4, 2008, 11:59 am

  Tags: Featured Front, Featured Secondary, Featured Servicing, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  It’s time to start writing off principal amounts on mortgages. That’s the message Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has for the mortgage banking industry, as the U.S. economy faces increasing peril amid a worsening housing crisis. In remarks delivered Tuesday to the Independent Community Bankers of America Annual Convention in

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• Could Covered Bonds Replace Securitization?

  Published: March 4, 2008, 10:29 am

  Tags: Featured Front, Featured Secondary, Secondary Markets

  Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said Monday that the U.S. bank regulator is pushing ahead with a plan to clear the way for a housing finance tool popular in Europe. Covered bonds are debt securities backed by cashflows from mortgages or public sector loans. They are similar in many ways to asset-backed securities

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• Thornburg Mortgage Tanks as Liquidity Concerns Mount

  Published: March 3, 2008, 12:43 pm

  Tags: Featured Front, Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  Ultra-prime mortgage lender Thornburg Mortgage Inc. said on Monday that it had failed to meet $270 million in margin calls received since just last week. On Thursday, the company had disclosed in a 10-K filing with the SEC that it had already been subject to $300 million in margin calls on its $2.9 billion portfolio of Alt-A mortgage-backed

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• Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Reach Landmark Agreement on Appraisal Practices

  Published: March 3, 2008, 11:37 am

  Tags: Featured Front, Featured Origination, Origination, Servicing Default, Andrew Cuomo, Appraisal, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mae, Gses, Mortgage, Ofheo

  (Update 3: added Freddie Mac; OFHEO comments; Cuomo comments) A landmark agreement by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will force some big changes to the way appraisals are processed in the mortgage industry. The agreement, which hit a snag last week, was finalized Monday morning and will eliminate

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• HOPE NOW: Mortgage Workouts Top One Million

  Published: March 3, 2008, 11:23 am

  Tags: Featured Front, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default, Hope Now, Loss Mitigation, Repayment Plans, Subprime

  Approximately 1,035,000 homeowners have received some form of loan workout since July 2007, according to the most recent data released by HOPE NOW Monday morning. Workouts included 758,000 repayment plans initiated and 278,000 loan modifications, the group said. Related links: HOPE NOW data through January 31 Eighteen HOPE NOW servicers,

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• OCC to Require Loan Level Data from Major Servicers

  Published: March 3, 2008, 7:16 am

  Tags: Featured Front, Featured Servicing, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said late Friday that it will require nine of the nation’s largest banks that service mortgages to provide comprehensive mortgage data to the government agency on a monthly basis. The required data will build upon the efforts of the HOPE NOW alliance, the OCC said in a press statement. Related

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• Rate Freeze Plan Could Keep $12 Billion in Subprime Mortgages Current: Report

  Published: March 3, 2008, 7:16 am

  Tags: Featured Front, Featured Secondary, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default, Asf, Clayton, Rate Freeze, Subprime, Treasury

  For all of the bashing the subprime ARM rate-freeze program has taken recently, a new report suggests that the plan may have more merit to it than many in the consumer and popular press might think. The report, published late last month by risk management and due diligence provider Clayton Holdings, Inc., challenges common perceptions and says

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• Fitch Ratings Voices Concern Over Title Insurance Outlook

  Published: March 5, 2008, 1:24 pm

  Tags: Featured Front, Origination, Servicing Default

  Fitch Ratings said Wednesday that its outlook on the title industry had turned negative, amid a sharp decline in revenue and profits and expectations for further deterioration in 2008 and 2009. Historically, Fitch noted that it is rare for U.S. title insurers to produce net losses; nonetheless, four out of five publicly-traded, national title

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• PMI's U.S. Mortgage Insurance Ops Post $236 Million Loss in Q4

  Published: March 5, 2008, 1:07 pm

  Tags: Featured Front, Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  While its formal earnings report won’t be available until next week, mortgage insurer the PMI Group, Inc. said earlier this week that its U.S. mortgage insurance operations lost $236 million during the fourth quarter of 2007, compared to earning of $77.2 million in the year-ago period. The fourth quarter loss pushed PMI into the red for the

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• Ambac Halted, Deal to Split up Monoline Rumored Imminent

  Published: March 5, 2008, 12:41 pm

  Tags: Featured Front, Secondary Markets

  Trading in shares of troubled bond guarantor Ambac Financial were halted early Wednesday afternoon for pending news, although no official statement has been released just yet. Numerous news agencies are reporting that Ambac will announce a bailout agreement that will see the monoline split apart its municipal bond business and establish a seperate

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• Agency MBS Spreads Reach Two Decade High

  Published: March 5, 2008, 12:26 pm

  Tags: Featured Front, Featured Secondary, Origination, Secondary Markets

  The yield spread between agency MBS bonds and 10-year U.S. Treasuries on Wednesday reached a level not seen since 1986, according to a report by Bloomberg’s Jody Shenn. The spread is boosting the cost of conforming mortgages for high-quality mortgage borrowers at time when mortgage affordability is a chief concern for many market

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