You bet it does. It buys you the right to tell Washington
Mutual to eliminate the business channel by May 31st (loans must lock by
tomorrow, and most loans must fund by June 13th). WaMu announced yesterday
to their employees that they are closing down their wholesale loan division,
with yet-to-be-determined cuts in retail. Rumors had swirled about their
wholesale business channel for quite some time, but this announcement came as a
surprise to many wholesale reps. Supposedly closing wholesale was a stipulation
from a private equity firm that was giving them $5 billion (Too risky? The
investor didn’t like the servicing performance? It doesn’t fit
their business model?). A rumored $5-7 billion capital infusion for WaMu
follows other investors injecting capital into banks and brokerages, including
Countrywide, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and UBS. The new
capital for WaMu would be provided by a group led by private-equity firm TPG Inc.,
based in Texas,
the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
How is Florida
holding up – are they still doing lots of FHA loans? Mostly known for
retirees (I saw one bumper sticker once that said, “Florida:
God’s Waiting Room”), Florida
is often near the top in FHA production by state. By the way, if an agent
needs to see the old FHA limits, check out “FHA Connection”,
which reportedly has the old loan limits. If you select the “HECM
loan limits” in the county search you can view the “old” loan
limits, as HECM’s have not changed as yet.
Reportedly and e-mail was recently sent to the FHA as to how
a local mortgage company was doing FHA loans without the mini eagle. They
responded that it was OK to be paid on these loans through another company as a
consulting fee. According to the FHA rules, a borrower can select their own
broker. FHA currently views this as an acceptable reason to allow the payment.
NL’s Compliance Officer recently discussed this with a representative of
the HUD RESPA office. They are aware of the discrepancy and admit that the form
is not exactly correct and that they will address it with FHA. They would not
make a comment as to when we will hear the final word or whether the RESPA
violation will be permitted to continue.
Mortgage prices are roughly unchanged this morning, and
aside from the WaMu news there is little news. We will have the
release of the minutes of the March 18th FOMC meeting, along with
February’s pending home sales (expected to have decreased -1% following
January’s unchanged). Analysts will mostly be focusing on the FOMC
minutes for a better sense of what motivated the Fed’s 75 basis
point reduction a few weeks ago and what the near-term future might hold for
cuts. FNMA’s trading desk reported that for the super-sized conventional
jumbos, “the portfolio improved its whole loan pricing to 1.5 points
behind conventional conforming for par/premium coupons and 1.875
points behind conventional conforming for discounts.”
The other night my teenage girl brought her new boyfriend
home to meet us, and we were appalled by his appearance: leather jacket,
motorcycle boots, tattoos and pierced nose.
Later, we pulled our daughter aside and confessed our concern.
"Dear," said her mother diplomatically, "he doesn't seem very
nice."
"Oh please, Mom," replied my daughter, "If he wasn't nice, why
would he be doing 500 hours of community service?"
Rob
