Some would
say it is grim out there, and no, I am not talking about Hostess Brands, the manufacturer
of Twinkies, Ho Hos, and Ding Dongs cake snacks, filing for Chapter 11
bankruptcy. Is it right that 4,300 of our brethren were notified of losing
their jobs, after a potential sale fell through, in a letter to clients with a
dancing Snoopy in the letterhead?
"To Our
Valued Customers...We have made the
decision to wind‐down
all MetLife Home Loans' (MLHL) forward origination business, including the Institutional Lending
Group (ILG)... We will continue to honor all of our loan commitments and will
maintain the necessary staff in place to ensure each of your loan transactions
closes (subject to the loans meeting all investor and MLHL guidelines). Our
sales and support teams will work with each of you to ensure this transition is
as transparent to your customers and referral partners as possible. In return,
we ask that you keep your commitment by delivering your locked pipeline in
accordance with our agreements..."
The top five wholesale lenders for the
3rd quarter,
volume-wise, were in order: Provident Funding, U.S. Bank Home Mortgage, Wells
Fargo, Flagstar, and MetLife Home Loans. The
top twelve correspondent lenders for the 3rd quarter, volume-wise, were in
order: Wells Fargo, BofA, Chase, GMAC, Citi, Flagstar, PHH, U.S. Bank,
BB&T, Franklin American, SunTrust, and MetLife. And when one adds in retail
originations to the other two channels, for
the 3rd quarter MetLife clocked in at #10 (per National Mortgage News).
I received
this note: "If Fannie and Freddie don't
wake up and expedite their approval process the industry will be gone. Private
investors such as Wells are bogged down in operations. Companies aren't long
for this world when they don't have agency approval - we saw what happened last
month to O 2 Funding. Every lender out
there is grabbing onto the apron strings of the agencies; the same agencies
that many in the government want to shut down! Where will that leave things?"
On top of
this, investors in Residential Capital
Corp., which does business as GMAC Mortgage, have organized out of concern that
the residential lender and loan servicer could be headed toward bankruptcy.
Parent Ally Financial had hoped to take ResCap/GMAC public in 2011 but
ultimately scrapped those plans; it has since cited "risk factors"
with the unit but has not specifically discussed a possible bankruptcy filing.
And another top investor, PHH, was downgraded by S&P and raised its doubts
over continuing as a "going concern" if it failed to improve its
liquidity. PHH is also being investigated by the CFPB regarding its mortgage
insurance practices.
One can just hear large lenders
talking in their boardrooms. "Do we really want to be in this business,
given the regulatory, legal, financial, and public relations issues? Where the
value of servicing has dropped dramatically in the market, and could drop
further depending on Basel III? Where the mortgage insurance tax deductibility
has gone away? Where every week brings a new lawsuit - when will we have more
attorneys on staff than originators?"
The shutdown
will cost insurer MetLife about $100 million. "We continue to move forward with
our plans to cease being a bank holding company," the CEO said last month.
Servicing and reverse mortgage origination will continue, at least at this
time. John Calagna, as spokesman for MetLife, noted that most of the 4,300
employees at the unit will lose their jobs, 20% of whom are in Irving, Texas.
(Add this to Bank of America's announced 30,000 job cuts, and Citi's 4,500, and
one really starts to make a dent in financial services.)
Perhaps
some will contact Mason-McDuffie Mortgage Corporation, headquartered in
Northern California. The company has been around since 1887, is a mortgage
banker and broker, and is licensed in 28 states. MMCD is seeking branch managers, LO's and all operations positions to
join its expanding workforce. "MMCD enjoys branch operations throughout the
US with fulfillment centers in the Bay Area, the Northeast and adding new
centers in Southwest, Midwest and East. Mason McDuffie Mortgage is a privately
held mortgage banking company funding jumbo, conventional, government, and
rehab loans, and has its Fannie, Freddie, and Ginnie approvals. Contact Brian Moggan at bmoggan@mmcdcorp.com
with a resume.
That was
one ray of good news. The news is not much better elsewhere. JPMorgan Chase's mortgage originations in 2011
were the lowest in 10 years. A video of Jamie Dimon discussing his housing
forecasts can be seen on CNBC, and mentions that the bank is originating $10
billion in mortgages per month. HousingWire calculates that when the production
numbers are put together, JPMorgan Chase is likely originating its least amount
of mortgages in the last 10 years.
Lastly, Michael
Williams announced his intention to step down as CEO of Fannie Mae after 21
years with the agency. He's had that post since April 2009, and is viewed as
the leader in guiding Fannie Mae through the transition into conservatorship and
in "directing Fannie Mae's efforts to enhance loss mitigation strategies,
including loan modification and refinance options to help struggling
homeowners." FHFA will work with the Fannie Mae board of directors in searching
for a new CEO.
Folks out
and about looking for work might be interested in hiring trends, especially in
the mortgage industry in 2012. Here are some presented by Drew Waterhouse, Managing
Director of Hammerhouse.
Amid
declinations to comment, Goldman Sachs and
Citigroup are planning to market about $1 billion of bonds backed by commercial
property loans as soon as next week as demand for the debt recovers amid
optimism the U.S. economy can withstand Europe's fiscal crisis. The deal will
probably be the first of its kind for 2012.
When I was
at Cal grappling with the MBA requirements, taking accounting classes was never
a high priority. It should have been, and in the mortgage banking biz, the MBA
is here to help you remember if debits are on the left and credits on the right
(yes) or whether you can allocate a pair off loss to individual loans (not
really). "Taking place on Thursday, January 19, 2PM EST, CampusMBA and
Mortgage Banking Solutions will present Mortgage
Accounting Part I: Drilling into Mortgage Accounting. The following topics
will be covered: Essence of Accounting, Measurement, Risks and Results, The
Mortgage Road -- How it Works, Mortgage Banking Process Flow -- Who Does What,
Performance Metrics -- KPIs, Internal Controls, History of Accounting,
Financial Reporting Complexity vs. Simple & Easy, Accounting Methods &
Accounting Systems, GAAP -- Rules of the Road, The Audit and your CPA. Check it
out.
Parts II and III are the following weeks.
This
morning we had the weekly MBA application stats. Sometimes folks ask,
"What constitutes an application?" The MBA notes that, "We ask
our participants to follow the HMDA definition of an app, the key portion of
which is a credit pull. As you know, the HMDA definition and the RESPA GFE
requirements are not quite aligned." Maybe someone with time on their hands
should align the two! This morning the MBA released last week's application numbers which showed an increase of 4.5%.
Refinancing was up over 3%, and purchases were up over 8% - nice to see -
although refinancing still accounts for almost 81% of application activity.
At least
the markets continue to be quiet: like Monday, Tuesday we were virtually
unchanged with the 10-yr closing at 1.97% although MBS prices were worse by
about .125. The focus on Tuesday was on the Treasury auction supply, announced
last week so there is no surprise, and continued rumblings out of Europe that
will be with us for years. Generally speaking, Reuters reports that, "Supply
and demand appear very favorable in aggregate for 2012 with projected demand
from the Fed, banks, REITS, and money managers well above estimated net supply.
Still, there will likely be times when there will be temporary imbalances with
higher supply."
Today we'll
have the second leg in the latest round of Treasury auctions with $21 billion
10-year notes at 11AM CST. So far rates
are slightly better with the 10-yr at 1.94% and agency mortgage prices better
by about .125.
(Warning: parental discretion
advised.)
Last week, she checked into a motel on her 60th birthday and she was a bit
lonely. She thought, "I'll call one of those men you see advertised in
phone books for escorts and sensual massages."
She looked through the phone book, found a full page ad for a guy calling
himself Tender Tony - a very handsome man with assorted physical skills flexing
in the photo. He had all the right muscles in all the right places, thick wavy
hair, long powerful legs, dazzling smile, six pack abs and she felt quite
certain she could bounce a quarter off his well-oiled rump.
She figured, "What the heck, nobody will ever know. I'll give him a call."
"Good evening, ma'am, how may I help you?" Oh my, he sounded sooo
sexy!
Afraid she would lose her nerve if she hesitated, she rushed right in,
"Hi, I hear you give a great massage. I'd like you to come to my motel
room and give me one. No, wait, I should be straight with you. I'm in town all
alone and what I really want is passion. I want it hot, and I want it now.
Bring implements, toys, rubber, leather, and whips - everything you've got in
your bag of tricks. We'll go hot and heavy all night - tie me up, cover me in
chocolate syrup and whipped cream, anything and everything, I' m ready!! Now
how does that sound?"
He said, "That sounds absolutely fantastic, but you need to press 9 for an
outside line."
If you're interested, visit my twice-a-month blog at the STRATMOR Group web
site located at www.stratmorgroup.com. The current blog discusses the time
frames for borrowers returning to A-paper status after a short sale or
foreclosure. If you have both the time and inclination, make a comment on
what I have written, or on other comments so that folks can learn what's going
on out there from the other readers.