This is all about the difficulty of taking the punch bowl away from a roaring good party. Over the past several weeks a number of major banks folded under enormous pressure from the US DOJ to settle fraud claims resulting from the sale of bonds prior to the financial crisis of 2008. The allegations here … Continue Reading
I’d like everyone to go out and buy a copy of Professor Paul Mahoney’s slender new book, Wasting a Crisis – Why Securities Regulation Fails. Paul is a brilliant guy. Until this spring, he was the dean of the University of Virginia School of Law where he is the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor … Continue Reading
We thought it would be useful to give a quick, interim update on the slow-motion train wreck that is our industry’s response to the upcoming effectiveness of the Risk Retention Rule. For those of you who have been blessedly snoozing under a rock these past couple of years, the Risk Retention Rule becomes effective on … Continue Reading
More than two years after the first single-family rental securitization, the single-family rental market continues to evolve and grow. The rise of single-family rentals reflects both a demographic shift among the American population and a reactionary change in consumer habits resulting from the financial crises. According to U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans that … Continue Reading
Just in case you set your copy down during the cocktail hour at the SFIG & IMN ABS Vegas 2016 Conference, here is our latest OnPoint: RMBS Risk Retention is Here. Click here for more information about Risk Retention.… Continue Reading
As we begin to close in on the initial implementation of the Risk Retention Rule, we are looking beyond the headlines and trying to figure out how the Rule will actually work. The result is troubling.… Continue Reading
MERSCORP, Inc. (“MERS”) has been under fire for years. We wrote about it a while back when residential mortgage borrowers challenged the ability of MERS to foreclose on mortgages it held on the theory that MERS, as a mere nominee to the lender, was not a real party in interest. More recently, local recording offices … Continue Reading
As time goes by we start to get close to the first of two risk retention effective dates; December 24, 2015 for residential product and everything else looming December 24, 2016 (does anyone really think a Christmas Eve Effective Date was unintentional? Bah, Humbug!). More and more attention is now beginning to focus on the … Continue Reading
Never a dull moment. We at Crunched Credit are probably guilty of excess and perhaps myopic focus on our federal government and its regulatory apparatus; it is such a consistently reliable source of commentary and outrage. So here’s one out of left field, but no less important for that. … Continue Reading
We have previously written here on CrunchedCredit about Chinese banks lending in the U.S. With recent news that Chinese state-owned developer Greenland Group has agreed to purchase a 70% stake in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards development for $725 million, we have seen the first headline grabbing real estate acquisition of U.S. property by a Chinese investor. … Continue Reading
While we here at CrunchedCredit recognize that many of our readers spend their days deep in commercial lending land, we also like to provide updates for our residential lending friends from time to time (and for our commercial lending friends who like to be able to impress their resi-friends at cocktail parties). You may have … Continue Reading
A bill was recently introduced in the Senate that could result in the wind-down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Under the bi-partisan “Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013”, recently introduced by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mark Warner (D-VA), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be replaced by a new agency, … Continue Reading
Last summer, we at Crunched Credit wrote (here, here and here) about Mortgage Resolution Partner’s (“MRP”), a San Francisco-based venture-capital firm, proposal whereby underwater performing residential mortgage loans held in private label securitization would be seized, refinanced, or restructured and sold to third party investors, with the government recovering the administration costs and MRP earning … Continue Reading
February has certainly been a big month for federal agencies to issue long-awaited final rules. The latest agency to throw its hat into the ring is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which recently codified its long standing position that liability under the Fair Housing Act may be proven by disparate impact without … Continue Reading
Yesterday, Moody’s issued a Sector Comment expressing concerns with respect to proposed REO-To-Rental deals structured to utilize a collateral package comprised of equity-pledges in the SPV property owners in lieu of individual mortgage liens. Moody’s indicated that such equity-pledge structures may need to have strong third-party oversight (including regular monitoring of the ownership of individual … Continue Reading
One of this year’s most discussed investment ideas is the conversion of distressed or foreclosed single family homes into rental properties on a mass scale. With the FHFA’s Real Estate Owned Initiative offering product in bulk sales and major institutions stepping up to develop programs to finance the acquisition of the pools, REO-to-Rental strategies are … Continue Reading
Federal fair lending laws prohibit discrimination in credit transactions. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”) and the Fair Housing Act prohibit discrimination in mortgage lending on the basis of certain factors including race or color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, handicap or an applicant’s receipt of public assistance funds. The spotlight in this … Continue Reading
As is the case in too many cities in the United States, even after more than 4 years since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis, Chicago’s homeowners have been hard hit. In March of 2012, nearly 667,000 Chicago area homes were underwater, and 13% of those homeowners were also delinquent on their mortgage payments for … Continue Reading
It’s no secret that California has been hit harder than most states by the housing crisis. Just east of Los Angeles, the county of San Bernardino has cities with some of the highest foreclosure rates in the U.S. On July 18, the San Bernardino City Council declared a fiscal emergency and voted to file for … Continue Reading
Earlier this month I was a panelist at the HOPE NOW REO Symposium in DC. The Symposium brought together residential mortgage loan servicers, community non-profits, private equity investors, government agencies and lenders to discuss the growing number of REO on the balance sheets of Fannie, Freddie and private mortgage lenders. I participated in a panel that focused … Continue Reading
