South Beach played host to the 2018 CREFC January Conference last week, as roughly 1,800 of our best friends in the CRE lending and securitization industry assembled in Miami to reflect on another year gone by and to muse about what’s in store (or out of store, in the case of retail) for 2018. In … 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
As is our tradition here at Crunched Credit, each year, about this time, we award our Golden Turkey Awards. Once again, I must say that we are blessed, blessed with so many worthy candidates. Our government, our courts, the regulatory estate both here and in Europe and around the world and the political class in general 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 week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”) has joined the chorus of opponents, expressing “significant concerns about the use of eminent domain to revise existing financial contracts”. We at CrunchedCredit have recently covered the eminent domain proposals being considered by Chicago and San Bernardino County. … 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
With little good news on the horizon for the U.S. residential housing market, public and private programs offering the sale of bulk residential REO is, in many circles, the topic for real estate investment. The REO-to-Rental play is not without its risks – questions about the availability of financing and the viability of a structured … Continue Reading
I am on a Halloween kick right now – it’s the elections. I hear Zombies are popular this year. Zombies indeed. Do you ever think this could be a deeply sophisticated and sly commentary on our GSEs? How droll. They are scary. How about that for a segue. The private securitization market for residential mortgages … Continue Reading
Like a lot of homeowners this summer, my wife and I are looking to put new windows into our home. We moved last October, leaving our downtown condo when the impending arrival of our second daughter promised to make things a little too tight. A drafty winter and a number of windows that, well, just … Continue Reading
The commercial banks have largely paid it off, GM has paid it off, and even AIG says it will soon pay off the government’s emergency investment to save the Western world as we know it. As to the GSEs: not so much. We’ve got about $150 billion invested in these entities and no end in … Continue Reading
