Entries Tagged 'Finance Sector News' ↓

We all know about the collapse of the sub-prime market and the tidal wave effect it has had on the mortgage industry as a whole. Here is a brief synopsis. Over the last few years, Wall Street investors had fallen in love with the returns on sub-prime (lower credit ratings) mortgages. They paid a premium for these loans in large quantities. The demand of this sort of product in turn induced the lenders to lower their underwriting standards and make more of these loans.

After these portfolios started to mature, the true rates of delinquencies and losses was recognized to be higher than predicted. Aside from having homeowners who were never financially qualified, buyers were put into risky loans such as option ARMs that they did not entirely understand. At this time, the investors started buying these loans at a discounted rate instead of a premium because of the increased risk associated with these securities. The lenders would package thousands of these loans for some period of time and all of a sudden they had to pay to get rid of the loans in order to replenish their credit lines.

It gets worse - Most lenders use what are called “Warehouse” lines of credit to make their loans. As Wall Street recognized the error or their ways, the banks and investment houses that had established these credit lines with the mortgage lenders started making “margin calls”. This is a demand to pay down the line of credit in a given time frame. A mortgage lender could have a $20 million line of credit with a bank. The bank could believe that the collateral is only worth $18.5 million and require a payment of $1.5 million in the next 14 working days. And then every other creditor will want their line paid down as well so as not to be the most exposed party to one portfolio. You can see where the combination of cash expenditures spelled doom for mortgage lenders. But, these lenders did this to themselves. Unfortunately, there are also a huge bunch of folks out there that can’t sell their homes because prices have dropped and they can’t refinance because the lenders are requiring better credit and more equity.

Where are we now?

Rates are still good for people with good credit. “Piggyback” loans (2nd mortgages) are going away. This means that people with little or no money down will most likely have to pay Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) in order to get a loan. This protects the lender if the house is foreclosed upon and the amount from the sale of the home is less than the balance on the note.

What may be coming?

This is difficult to predict. I anticipate that home prices will continue to go down for the next 12-18 months. There will be a high delinquency and foreclosure rate. Mortgage lenders will have to rethink their business models in order to protect their cash positions and stay solvent and lastly I would anticipate more government regulation in the industry in regards to educating the customer and protecting them from risky loan products and unscrupulous lenders.

————————–

Patrick Randles is a guest contributor to Tucson REblog and gives an insider’s view on the mortgage industry. He is a Mortgage Loan Consultant with El Conquistador Mortgage in Tucson, Arizona. Patrick can be contacted by phone (520-850-7485) or email. Feel free to post any questions for Patrick!

A headline from the Arizona Daily Star’s “Breaking News” section - “First Magnus Financial Corp. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company announced today.” The seemingly overnight meltdown of First Magnus last week was just the latest consequence of the loose lending practices by banks the past few years. Now, there are whispers of Countrywide Home Loans having financial issues and Capital One just closed their wholesale mortgage unit yesterday.

How did this happen, you ask? Here is the short and sweet of it: When banks began loosening their lending standards several years ago, allowing “no-doc” loans and option ARMs and Interest Only mortgages, everyone was happy. After evaluating a potential buyer’s ability to repay the loan, and if the lender’s criteria were met, the buyer was given a loan. The primary lender may then hold onto the loan itself in it’s portfolio, but more commonly they sold the loan on the “secondary market.” They then used the profits from the sale to continue lending money to other potential buyers.
The secondary market is simply a marketplace where investors can buy the loans. For example, Freddie Mac is a large investor in the secondary market. They buy up mortgages from primary mortgage lenders do a few things with them:

1. package those loans into securities, and
2. sell the securities to investors on Wall Street.

For the past few years this cycle has been a very fruitful one; with interest rates at historic lows and practically everyone qualifying for a loan, the housing market experienced an absolute explosion in growth. Investors were happily investing their money in the secondary market and primary mortgage lenders continued lending money. But then… home growth slowed. More houses came onto the market, whether by investors trying to quickly unload a home or actual homeowners deciding it was time to sell. New home builders were suddenly left with excess inventory. And what happens when inventory goes up? Prices go down!

Investors no longer had the rabid interest in the secondary market that they did when the housing industry was booming. Primary mortgage lenders suddenly found themselves holding millions, or billions of dollars worth of loans that they could no longer sell. Essentially, this is what happened to First Magnus. Whether through risky lending practices or decreased activity in the secondary market (maybe both), First Magnus is the latest casualty in the mortgage industry. Keep in mind, there are other factors involved in the lending industry causing these effects (take a look at Asset-Backed Commerical Paper (ABCP)).

Will I Be Affected?

I truly feel sorry for all of those employees left in the dust by First Magnus. Thankfully the blow has been softened somewhat by community assistance in the form of a job fair co-sponsored by Stewart Title, the National Association of Professional Mortgage Women Tucson Association, the Arizona Association of Mortgage Brokers and the Southern Arizona Mortgage Lenders Association. More information on that job fair here.

I’m curious, is anyone else seeing the same types of events with local lenders?

Technorati Tags: loose lending practices, Countrywide Home Loans, Freddie Mac, First Magnus, Stewart Title, First Magnus Bankruptcy, Tucson Mortgage, Tucson Real Estate

Well some good news in the financial sector; Fair Isaac Corporation, best known to most of us as the source of FICO credit scores, Tuesday announced it will be adjusting it’s credit scoring standards to take into account the common practice of credit ‘boosting‘. It will no longer take into account an authorized user status when determining your credit score.
A brief excerpt from a quality blog I frequent:

An authorized user is a person permitted by a credit account holder to use an account, typically a family member who is managing credit for the first time. Used legitimately, authorized user account information has helped both lenders and consumers by enabling lenders to use FICO scores when making credit decisions for consumers who are starting to establish a credit history. Fair Isaac’s research indicates that the next version of its FICO scoring formula will deliver increased predictive power without considering authorized user accounts.

I am very pleased an industry heavyweight has hopped on board with the effort to curb some of the issues that are finally coming to light in the housing market. The bottom line of this credit boosting change (named “FICO 08″, available this September) is that it will prevent people from qualifying for loans who never should have qualified for them in the first place! There is no doubt this change comes a little late, but is that really a surprise?

Technorati Tags: FICO, credit score, FICO scores, credit boosting