Securitization

A substantial number of at-risk homeowners' loans have been modified under the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), according to a report released today by HOPE NOW.

Moving away from Washington D.C., the American Securitization Forum (ASF) has announced that its annual conference, ASF 2011, will be held in Orlando, Florida next February.

The 30-day or more past due rate on securitized multifamily mortgages rose 28 basis points in May to 13.34%-dashing hopes that delinquencies in that sector of the commercial real estate market had stabilized.

Just 10% of the re-REMIC deals Fitch has been presented with get rated in the wake of a number of restrictions it has put in place over the last year and ratings in the category are less volatile as a result of the move.

Ally Financial,formerly GMAC, is getting back into wholesale mortgage lending by extending the centralized underwriting team it uses for correspondent and retail lending to brokered loans.

Bob Howard, a mortgage industry veteran who has worked in both the prime and nonprime sectors, is working with a nonbank lender to enter the jumbo market.

Despite near record low mortgage rate levels, refinancing response was very muted for the week ending May 28.

The delinquency rate for commercial real estate loans rose 42 basis points to 8.42% in May — the highest in CMBS industry history, according to a report from Trepp released today.

CIT Group Inc. is rounding out its executive suite, taking another step toward normality for the financing company — and potentially earning regulators' approval for John Thain's planned shift toward a banking model.

CitiFinancial, the Baltimore-based consumer finance subsidiary of Citi Holdings, New York, has provided some details on how it is separating its business into two segments.

Standard & Poor’s appointed Howard Esaki as managing director and head of the rating agency's new global structured finance research department.

It's no secret that the GSEs have been demanding billions of dollars in loan buybacks over the past year, but now Freddie Mac is warning that some of its seller/servicers may not meet their repurchase obligations.

Mortgage lenders that finance vacation homes on the Jersey Shore of the Garden State may have more to worry about this year than just the negative image of beach towns caused by the MTV reality series of the same name.

Ginnie Mae said a recent change it made to its Ginnie II MBS program will help mortgage bankers with their warehouse lines of credit.

Loan securitizers are bracing for an invasion of backseat drivers. By Wednesday, June 2, issuers and rating agencies must comply with a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule designed to encourage more unsolicited opinions on ABS. The regulator wants to remove the conflicts of interest in the ratings process that led to inflated ratings in the past and contributed to the financial crisis.

Barclays has arranged a $350 million term loan backing Ocwen Loan Servicing’s acquisition of HomEq Servicing, according to Bloomberg.

CIT Group has hired a new credit chief along with a new head of administrative affairs, the New York-based middle-market lender announced Tuesday.

European CMBS loans saw a slight decrease in repayments during the month of May, according to figures reported by Fitch Ratings Maturity Repayment Index.

Any examination of the causes of the financial crisis is exceedingly complex, with a variety of causes that include bad lending, monetary policy mistakes, a bubble in real estate prices, bank capitalization, etc. In this light, the recent congressional hearings on Goldman Sachs should not be dismissed as mere theatrics, as they highlighted the industry's willingness and ability to unload defective transactions into the market. A candid assessment of the causes of the crisis and the future of securitized lending forces us to address why the "market forces" that had protected investors in prior years failed to prevent the market from being flooded with flawed securities. It is imperative that we understand and identify market functions, determine why they broke down and devise both market- and regulation-based remedies.

Held in May, the Securitization and Structured Finance in Latin America (SiLAS) conference hosted by Euromoney Seminars and LatinFinance turned out to be a postmortem of sorts, except that the event being taken apart - the crisis and its aftermath - is not entirely over, especially in Mexico.