Category Archives: foreclosure rate

Guest Post: The Migratory Patterns of Yield-Hungry Investors

Editor’s Note: in this guest post, former bond insurance insider Steve Ruterman discusses important considerations for investing in private label MBS beyond credit risk analysis, including how investors can benefit from understanding the differences in servicer behavior and business models.  … Continue reading

Posted in Attorneys General, bondholder actions, conflicts of interest, firing servicers, foreclosure rate, guest posts, hedge funds, incentives, investors, junior liens, loan modifications, loan seasoning, MBIA, MBS, moral hazard, mortgage market, pre-investment due diligence, private label MBS, projecting risk adjusted returns, putbacks, regulation, Regulators, servicer defaults, servicer reports, servicers, subprime | Leave a comment

Under AG Foreclosure Settlement, Servicers Get Credit for Things They’re Supposed to Do

Last week, District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer approved the Attorney General Foreclosure Settlement (“AGFS”) without a hearing, and without any objection from investors.  According to the Judge, the Consent Judgment between the nation’s five largest servicers and the Attorneys General … Continue reading

Posted in Adam Levitin, Ally Bank, Attorneys General, auditing, bailout, Bank of New York, banks, BofA, Citigroup, conflicts of interest, contract rights, costs of the crisis, Countrywide, damages, foreclosure crisis, foreclosure rate, global settlement, homeowner relief, improper documentation, incentives, investors, JPMorgan, junior liens, liabilities, MBS, mortgage market, Neil Barofsky, pooling agreements, press, private label MBS, RMBS, robo-signers, servicer defaults, servicers, settlements, Wells Fargo | 2 Comments

WTBTF Book Tour Day 2: Meeting, Marketing and Mentoring in Manhattan

I woke Tuesday morning, Nov. 8 on the second day of the Way Too Big to Fail book tour to the news that Kathy Patrick, legal architect of Bank of America’s Hail Mary Countrywide settlement (background here and here), had … Continue reading

Posted in BlackRock, Bloomberg, BofA, book tour, Countrywide, foreclosure rate, Fox News, Greenwich Financial Services, investors, Kathy Patrick, litigation, loan modifications, loss causation, MBIA, MBS, media coverage, Morgan Stanley, mortgage market, MSNBC, PIMCO, Presentations, Regulators, The Subprime Shakeout, Uncategorized, Way Too Big to Fail, William Frey | Leave a comment

Federal Short Sale Programs Will Face Same Shortcoming As Workouts: Too Much Carrot, Not Enough Stick

With government-backed loan modification programs showing abysmal results, Washington has turned to short sales as the flavor of the week to ameliorate the foreclosure crisis.  Pursuant to the Treasury Department’s Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) initiative, effective April 5, loan … Continue reading

Posted in allocation of loss, California Lawyer, conflicts of interest, foreclosure rate, HAFA, incentives, loan modifications, servicers, short-selling, Treasury | 1 Comment

New Evidence Shows Loan-to-Value Ratio Contributed Most Heavily to Mortgage Meltdown

An article published in the Wall St. Journal this week by Stan Liebowitz posits a purportedly new take on the causes of the mortgage meltdown. Liebowitz’s analysis of recent data on millions of individual loans published by McDash Analytics, a … Continue reading

Posted in allocation of loss, foreclosure rate, irresponsible lending, lending guidelines, loan modifications, loss causation, LTV, negative equity, stated income, subprime, toxic assets, Wall St. | Leave a comment