Legislation proposed this week by Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, could bail out subprime lenders and kick-start subprime lending. However, analysts are skeptical that enough Republicans will be swayed to back the...
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The Department of Housing and Urban Development has acknowledged that FHASecure, a much touted refinancing mechanism for getting distressed borrowers out of bad loans, is not helping many delinquent borrowers. There are just too many borrowers...
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It was a horrible year for the subprime market, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac significantly increased their subprime mortgage purchase and guarantee business in 2007. The government-sponsored enterprises’ appetite for subprime... [Includes one chart]
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Merrill Lynch last week ended its $1.3 billion foray into the subprime mortgage origination sector by closing First Franklin, the subsidiary the investment bank purchased from National City just over a year ago. Merrill is also looking to sell the...
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In what could be the final year of its reign, wholesale lending continued to account for the majority of subprime originations in 2007. According to Inside B&C Lending, broker and correspondent lending accounted for an estimated 58.7... [Includes two charts]
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Subprime adjustable-rate mortgages continued to perform poorly in the fourth quarter of 2007, as foreclosure starts on the loans increased 57 basis points from the previous quarter to 5.29 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association...
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“The only light at the end of the tunnel is the oncoming train, I’m afraid,” Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics at New York University, said this week, summing up the current state of the subprime market. His fellow panelists at a talk sponsored by...
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Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Re-form, hauled three CEOs in for a hearing last week on the relationship between their compensation and the income their companies extracted from the subprime market. Not...
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The vast majority of the AAA-rated subprime mortgage-backed securities that comprise the ABX index have not been downgraded but should have been. An analysis by Bloomberg found that Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service have failed...
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