The slowdown in the subprime mortgage market and a deteriorating secondary market for second mortgages helped drive new production of home-equity loan securities during the second quarter of 2007 to its lowest level in three years... [Includes two charts and one graph]
Read More
Not satisfied with its recent 700+ downgrades of subprime MBS, Moody’s Investors Service this week upped its standards for rating such deals and increased its loss expectations for piggyback second mortgages and stated-income loans. The rating service also noted...
Read More
Standard & Poor’s this week said it will release finalized guidelines on loan modifications in August and will continue to take comment on the proposal through Aug. 3. In a conference call this week, S&P responded to some concerns that have been raised...
Read More
As the bad news about the housing market and subprime lending continues, federal regulators continue to brainstorm how to limit the collateral damage. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. hosted top officials from Treasury, the Office of Federal Housing...
Read More
More than a year after hiring the former chief financial officer of Freddie Mac to run its capital markets desk, Wells Fargo continues to rely on Wall Street investment bankers to underwrite its non-agency MBS issuance. Several of Wells Fargo’s biggest competitors...
Read More
Countrywide Financial accounted for nearly a fifth of all residential MBS produced in the U.S. during a surprisingly strong first six months of 2007, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database. Overall mortgage-securities... [Includes one chart]
Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission agrees with the mortgage and MBS industry that modifications of loans in subprime pools when default is likely should not jeopardize the accounting treatment of the deal. Some experts had raised concerns that servicers...
Read More