Finance

Bill Beckmann begins each week with a flight from his home in St. Louis to Washington, D.C. The weekly flights have become a routine of sorts since he took on a job that of late, has become among the most daunting among executive jobs in the mortgage industry, president and chief executive of Merscorp.

Avis Budget Group filed an 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday.

Reducing the backlog of foreclosures and speeding up the foreclosure process is crucial to reviving the economy, housing experts testified before a Senate panel hearing on Wednesday.

The CMBS market rallied for a second straight day. The sector was boosted by rising equity markets and word that new CMBS deals in September are being well received by investors, according to Trepp.

The number of properties underwater declined slightly in the second quarter, according to a new report released by CoreLogic.

Turkey’s Garanti Bank is in discussion with the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) over receiving straight funding or a guarantee in a deal that could potentially be a structured transaction, said two sources familiar with the process.

The once red-hot mortgage REIT sector is in for a cold dose of reality — which could spill over to the already-cool housing market.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rates set a new record low of 4.09% with a 0.7 point that equates to 4.265%, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey. This is down three basis points from last week's record low of 4.12%.

Now that the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has sued the pants off of 17 issuers of nonprime MBS, the big question boils down to this: How much will the agency actually collect?

MBIA has had strokes of luck lately, with the most recent positive developments coming from lawsuits filed against the company.

Three officials – including chief operating officer Craig Wildrick – recently left Alonhill, an independent third-party mortgage review firm based in Denver.

The National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) told Senate leaders this week that continued U.S. support of MBS through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is critical for these non-profit lenders.

Redwood Trust's Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2011-2 (SEMT 2011-2) is in the market with a roughly $375 million prime RMBS.

Bingham McCutchen is expanding its presence to California by hiring Dan Passage in the firm's Los Angeles office.

In the holiday-shortened week ending Sept. 9, mortgage application activity increased 6.3% in response to record low mortgage rates.

The New Jersey Supreme Court lifted a foreclosure ban on Ally Financial this week, removing the last state barrier for mortgage servicers to fully resume operations a year after their widespread "robosigning" procedures came to light.

DBRS hired David Sánchez Rodríguez for its structured finance group as assistant vice president.

Perhaps it was appropriate that a panel of professors testified Tuesday about how to reform the U.S. mortgage system since Capitol Hill's approach to the issue is increasingly beginning to resemble an academic exercise.

Santander U.K. is slated to price its prime U.K. RMBS on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report.

With the unemployment rate for young college graduates staying at a record high, more recent student loan securitization vintages backed partly by loans to young college graduates are performing worse than earlier vintages, said a report released today by Moody's Investors Service.