Refinance Free Credit

In a nod to increasing investor and credit rating agency concern over mushrooming exposure to its now-infamous Pick-A-Pay mortgages, Wachovia Corp. (WB: 15.46, -4.69%) said on Monday afternoon that it would no longer offer negatively amortizing mortgages to customers. So-called option ARMs were originated in force during the recent housing boom, and have recently led [...]

LandAmerica Financial Group, Inc. (LFG: 22.27, -1.29%) said Monday afternoon that it would merge its Transnation Title Insurance Company subsidiary into its Lawyers Title Insurance Corporation subsidiary, as the company pursues what it called an “integrated and unified operating company.” The process will leave the title services giant with two major title underwriting platforms: Lawyers [...]

City officials in Worcester, Massachusetts have asked state lawmakers to give them immediate local authority to halt subprime foreclosures for six months, limit evictions and force a judicial review of foreclosures. State lawmakers are already considering a bill that would establish a 180-day moratorium throughout Massachusetts, but city officials say that conditions in New England’s [...]

Prepayment data service Mortgage Maxx AFS warned MBS holders last week that prepayment rates should sag over the summer — and through year end, as well, if expectations for higher mortgage rates are met. “Mortgagors are having a hard time seeing the Fed’s alpha this easing cycle,” said Paul Descloux, Mortgage Maxx AFS chief, pointing [...]

Connected risk management: Visionet Systems said last week that it had updates its mortgage enterprise risk management offering, known as MERM — what caught our eye wasn’t the technology per se, but the nod towards understanding true enterprise risk in any mortgage banking operation. “The Mortgage Industry will need to realize that risk cannot be managed [...]

The changing landscape in mortgage banking is propelling fast-growth for lenders that specialize in originating mortgages endorsed by the Federal Housing Administration; Melville, New York-based Lend America is a perfect example of what may be the new reality in mortgage lending. The company, one of the nation’s largest direct-to-consumer FHA lenders, said Monday morning that [...]

The Securities and Exchange Commission has ramped up its investigation into a range of potentially illegal activity tied to the nation’s mortgage meltdown, according to a published report Monday. SEC probes tied to subprime lending and related mortgage banking activity have risen 40 percent since January, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a source familiar [...]

Recent legislation in Maryland requiring a private process server to attempt to personally notify homeowners of the intent to foreclose is proving to be a boon for companies that specialize in the service. One such company, Tampa, Florida-based Provest, said Monday that it had opened an office in the state to help servicers and their [...]

In what may be a sign of market trends to come, or just a signal of the enormous opportunity emerging for bad mortgages, a CRE specialist said Monday morning that it’s headed into distressed residential real estate — the latest firm to announce its intentions in an increasingly crowded space for bad loans, and the [...]

Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer-prize winning foreign-affairs columnist at the New York Times, weighs in with a point that the editorial team at HW has been hammering for months now: that housing, and the economy in general, will decide the outcome of the upcoming Presidential election. Not Iraq, or the War on Terrorism. Not Social Security, or [...]