When I was a kid, boy bands wrote songs about girls, cars, and school. Well, I guess the times have changed. This one, from Isaac Hollingsworth, comes from the son of a principal in a mortgage-related recruiting firm. State of Mortgage Banking/Brokering Where are the investors going? How about, “Away”? A good-sized, relatively well capitalized
HSBC
Wachovia, being acquired by Wells Fargo, reported a loss of $23.9 billion in the third quarter, its third straight quarterly loss. Wells, who never made a market in the neg-am, pick-a-pay loans, is paying about $14 billion for Wachovia. Wells is also restructuring some balance sheet items in order to stay under the “no bank
Why couldn’t I have been born a Saudi prince? Then I could influence the supply and demand of a commodity. Crude oil prices hit a 13-month low, and so now OPEC will probably announce production cuts at a meeting next week. Under the heading, “nothing goes up, or down, forever”, oil has tumbled more than
Bailout Stalled Out Negotiations are scheduled to resume at 8:30AM PST on the bailout plan in an attempt to reach an agreement. Democrats are insisting that a majority of Republicans support the proposal because Democrats do not want to campaign for the November election against opponents who say that the incumbent Democrats bailed out big
Last night, as I was taunting my dog with a hunk of cheddar cheese waved above her nose, the look in her eye reminded me that there is talk among loan agents of a mythical refi boom. Not your parent’s refi boom, or the 48 minute refi boom in January, but a real one. Of
T-Bill Prices Rally So Much On Uncertainty, Yields Touch Zero Want to loan the US Government money for 3 months? If you bought a 3 month T-bill yesterday, the annual yield you’d earn was .16%. (Notice the decimal place.) The 1 month bill is/was down to 0%. As one bond analyst said, “There’s a lot
The price of a standard admission Walt Disney World in Florida rose to $75 per day, up from $71 since August 2007. A child’s ticket, which previously sold for $60, rose to $63. Will this be the final inflation straw that pushes the Fed to increase overnight rates tomorrow? Doubtful, and there is no word
“Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.” So the saying goes. Hopefully that pertains to bankers and not mortgage bankers, not that bankers are bad! Speaking of mortgage bankers, the attached letter from the MBAA detailing the key points of the new Housing Bill will hopefully answer many questions that originators have. SECONDARY MARKETING QUIZ
After announcing plans to raise $7 billion by selling ownership in their company, WaMu elaborated, “We will conduct our mortgage production business through our retail banking stores and our consumer-direct channels, which includes telephone and online sales. This is in line with our strategic direction to organize around our retail distribution network. As a result,