Fitch Ratings unleashed a slew of servicer ratings actions today, led by the downgrade of troubled subprime shop NovaStar: Though NFI’s recent agreement with Wachovia for additional funding facilities may relieve the company’s short term liquidity pressure and afford NFI additional time to seek strategic alternatives, the rating actions reflect challenges that still face the company [...]

The Washington Business Journal is reporting today that Fidelity & Trust Bank will sell its 200-employee mortgage operations to a private equity firm: Barry Watkins, president and CEO of Bethesda-based Fidelity & Trust Bank, said the decision to sell Fidelity & Trust Mortgage Inc. was made so that Fidelity can focus on growing its banking capabilities [...]

CNNMoney has an interesting article tackling what I suspect most of us knew was going on at some level during the boom — borrowers were given subprime product when they could have qualified for a prime loan. The numbers, however, are just jaw-dropping: Freddie Mac, a government-sponsored mortgage-loan buyer, estimated that borrowers of 15 to 35 [...]

Freddie’s weekly primary market survey of mortgage rates is out: …the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 6.42 percent with an average 0.4 point for the week ending May 31, 2007, up from last week when it averaged 6.37 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 6.67 percent. The 15-year FRM this week averaged 6.12 [...]

If you haven’t waded through the default industry waters before, you might be surprised to see the vehemence with which different data companies argue the validity of their numbers. RealtyTrac, Foreclosures.com, Economy.com, and many — many — more. All will BRISTLE at even the slightest hint their numbers are wrong. Yet someone’s are. Why? Because nobody has [...]

The venerable Case-Shiller housing price index numbers are out today, and Calculated Risk beat me to it. Here’s the formal press release from Standard & Poor’s. The primary index was down 0.7% from Q4 2006 and down 1.4% from Q1 2006. “The fall of the National Index into negative territory, after more than 15 years of positive annual [...]

An interesting bit of news crossing Business Wire late last week from Fitch on subprime mortgages: Home prices were virtually unchanged for 2006 subprime mortgages even as subprime defaults rose to double digit levels, according to Fitch Ratings in a new report. In recent years, double-digit home price inflation has helped keep subprime defaults to very [...]

Via a press release on the Fed’s Web site: The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday announced the discussion topics for its June 14 public hearing under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA). The purpose of the hearing is to gather information about how the Board might use its rulemaking authority to curb abusive lending [...]

New mortgage laws that restrict access to certain loans would be an overreaction to the current foreclosure situation and deprive hundreds of thousands of Americans the opportunity to own their own homes, according to a study released today by the American Financial Services Association (AFSA). The study, conducted by the Center for Statistical Research (CSR), finds [...]

I saw a interesting post today over at a blog maintained by none other than Rick Grant on Yahoo!’s “reporting” on a recent speech given by Angelo Mozilo: Now, I know for a fact that Angelo Mozillo [sic], oft-quoted leader of Countrywide Financial Corp., has about a dozen snazzy head shots floating around the industry at [...]