Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Bankruptcy Cram-Down Would Deliver $17 Million Benefit to Federal Goverment

  Published: February 8, 2008, 3:39 pm

  Tags: Servicing Default

  According to a cost estimate released Thursday by the Congressional Budget Office, enactment of a bill seeking to amend federal bankruptcy law to allow for principal cram-downs on primary residences would deliver $17 million in cost savings and additional revenues to the federal government. The CBO estimated that HR 3609, the Emergency Home

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• Congress Passes Economic Stimulus Package; Will it Help Housing?

  Published: February 8, 2008, 12:01 pm

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  Get ready for jumbo conforming. The U.S. Congress yesterday passed and sent to President George Bush a $168 billion economic stimulus plan that would boost the GSE conforming limit to as much as $729,750 through the end of this year. The plan would also raise FHA lending limits to the same level for high-cost areas. More than a few commentators

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• Cuomo: Rating Agency Reforms are Window Dressing'

  Published: February 8, 2008, 11:00 am

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  Last Friday, I jokingly wrote: I'm giving odds of 10:1 that New York AG Andrew Cuomo muscles his way into the headlines, somehow, next week. Turns out he did just that. Cuomo came out firing Friday against proposed reform efforts by leading rating agencies announced earlier this week, according to various media reports, saying the proposals are

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• OFHEO To Publish Monthly Housing Price Index

  Published: February 8, 2008, 9:54 am

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said yesterday that it will begin publishing a monthly housing price index, according to a report by Reuters. The news agency reported that Edward DeMarco, deputy director of OFHEO, told attendees at the New York Society of Security Analysts forum Thursday that the agency would move to move to a

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• Conforming Limits Boosted: President Bush Signs H.R. 5140

  Published: February 13, 2008, 6:09 pm

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  President Bush on Wednesday signed H.R. 5140, the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, making official a temporary boost to both conforming and FHA loan limits. The new law boosts the GSE conforming limit to as much as $729,750 through the end of this year, and also raises FHA lending limits to the same level for high-cost areas. “I know many

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• Wells Fargo Re-Ups Servicing Contract with Fidelity

  Published: February 13, 2008, 4:59 pm

  Tags: Servicing Default

  over FIS’ Mortgage Servicing Package (known as MSP to most in the industry). Terms were not disclosed. Wells Fargo has used the servicing platform for more than 20 years, and currently services more than 7.9 million loans via MSP, according to a joint press statement. MSP is a ubiquitous legacy servicing platform used to service roughly

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• Morgan Stanley to Scale Back on Residential Mortgages

  Published: February 13, 2008, 4:13 pm

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  Morgan Stanley said Wednesday that it will lay off 1,000 employees in the U.S. and the UK as it moves to retrench its ailing residential mortgage business. Citing “continued deterioration in the mortgage markets,” the firm said it will close its UK-based mortgage business, Advantage Home Loan, while it cuts back on its U.S. footprint

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• The New Subprime? Credit Unions and Community Banks Look to Fill Lending Void

  Published: February 13, 2008, 4:01 pm

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  As subprime credit dries up amid the worst housing slump since the Depression-era, many troubled subprime borrowers are apparently finding help from two sources that were oft-overlooked during the recent housing run-up: credit unions and community banks. Via the Wall Street Journal, a return to more personal lending: Unlike big lenders, credit

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• Fed's Yellen Warns of Negative Feedback Loop'

  Published: February 13, 2008, 3:41 pm

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  A Fed official said yesterday that housing woes are a weight on the U.S. economy that has yet to be resolved, and warned that the Fed may have to contend with a situation where downward market forces feed off of one another. Saying “growth risks are skewed to the downside for the near term,” Janet Yellen, president of the Federal

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• And The Nation's Highest Foreclosure Rate in 2007 Goes To

  Published: February 13, 2008, 10:14 am

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  click to see top 50 MSAs For all of the attention California and Florida have been getting during the recent housing bust — and rightfully so — the nation’s highest foreclosure rate isn’t in either former housing hotspot. It’s in none other that Detroit, Michigan, which has seen its economy decimated by continuing

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• MGIC Posts Huge Q4 Loss, Says More to Come

  Published: February 13, 2008, 9:39 am

  Tags: Origination, Servicing Default

  quickly increasing borrower defaults, CEO Curt Culver said that MGIC doesn’t expect to report a profit in 2008, and will look for ways the company can raise capital going forward. Cure rates are a problem in California and Florida, Culver said, while economic weakness in the Midwest is pushing overall delinquency rates higher as well; HW

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• Countrywide Sees Delinquencies, Foreclosures Continue to Rise

  Published: February 16, 2008, 12:01 am

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  Foreclosure activity at the nation’s largest servicer continues to ratchet upward, with Countrywide Financial Corp. reporting on Friday that pending foreclosures rose 4 basis points between December and January to 1.48 percent of unpaid principal balace, according to a monthly summary posted today by the lender. Foreclosure activity is now

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• California Foreclosures Soar in January; 98 Percent of Auctions Lead to REO

  Published: February 15, 2008, 11:43 pm

  Tags: Servicing Default

  ForeclosureRadar. Notices of Default recorded in January numbered 38,617, up 16.4 percent from 32,948 in December. This increase follows a 45.1 percent increase from November to December. With a minimum of roughly four months between recording of a Notice of Default and the property being sold at auction, the recent increases in defaults clearly

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• Jumbo Conforming' Won't Be Part of TBA Trades: SIFMA

  Published: February 15, 2008, 2:17 pm

  Tags: Origination, Secondary Markets, Servicing Default

  Confirming what sources had suggested for the past week, The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) said Friday that it will keep newly-conforming jumbo mortgages out of the to-be-announced market. The decision means newly-eligible conforming borrowers aren’t likely to get all of the GSE rate benefits that had been

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• Radian: Ouch, to the Tune of $618 Million

  Published: February 15, 2008, 12:42 pm

  Tags: Origination, Servicing Default

  investment into C-BASS. Default activity continued rising, as well. Total defaults reached 6.8 percent of the primary insurance portfolio at the end of the fourth quarter, compared to 5.43 percent at the end of 2006. But the jump in deliquencies was most noticable among the company’s insured Alt-A loans, with defaults at a reported

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