Defaults on mortgages backed by the nation’s mortgage largest mortgage insurers reached a new high-water mark during January, according to data released Friday by the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America. Insured defaults reached 68,950 during the month, an increase of 31 percent from year-ago levels. Cure rates have been extremely problematic for primary mortgage insurers as [...]

Senate GOP members blocked a proposal on Thursday by Democratic leaders to introduce a second economic relief bill focused on housing reform. The proposal, led by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), would seek to allow bankruptcy judges to modify the principal amount of a borrower’s [...]

Not only was HW in front of the WSJ’s report on the FDIC bulking up for bank failures, but we were a good month ahead of major media on YouWalkAway.com — a site that is dedicated to “helping” borrowers walk away from their mortgages. Today — one month later — the NY Times ran a front-page [...]

Question: how much is left to downgrade in the subprime RMBS space? Answer: more than you might think. In what’s becoming a week-end ritual during the credit crunch, Fitch Ratings on Friday issued a spate of new subprime RMBS downgrades. The downgraded securities are sure to force some readjustments to someone’s balance sheet, given all [...]

The parent of Fremont Investment & Loan said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday that it may sell itself as the former subprime giant finds itself caught up in the latest round of the mortgage industry’s credit crunch. Fremont said it would likely record write-downs and loss reserve charges that would [...]

It’s the credit crunch that somehow manages to keep on crunching: on Friday, Standard & Poor’s warned that it may downgrade as many as 1,887 classes from 404 Alt-A backed RMBS issued in 2006 and 2007. The warning comes as many Alt-A mortgages, including no-doc, low-doc and negative amortization loans, are quickly showing signs of [...]

Wells Fargo & Co., the second largest mortgage lender in the U.S., said earlier this week that it was making changes to its lending guidelines in more than 200 housing markets spanning 24 states and Washington D.C. that it identified as either “soft,” “distressed,” or “severely distressed.” Reuters obtained confirmation from Wells Fargo regarding the [...]

Business news station CNBC reported late Thursday that Merrill Lynch will shutter its subprime mortgage origination arm First Franklin amid continuing woes in the U.S. mortgage and housing markets. The channel reported that the move will cost some 400 to 500 employees their jobs. While CNBC reported that Merrill would keep First Franklin’s servicing business intact, [...]

Wilbur Ross, the billionaire investor that last year snapped up the servicing platform of failed mortgage lender American Home Mortgage, has committed up to $1 billion in capital to AAA-rated bond guarantor Assured Guaranty Ltd. WL Ross & Co. LLC will purchase $250 million in common shares of Assured, with a company option to purchase [...]

Here at the MBA Servicing Conference in New Orleans, we’re attending plenty of sessions. But the most interesting of the day was a Freddie Mac-led panel featuring vice president of servicing and asset management Ingrid Beckles, who said the GSE spent $12 million last year on loss mitigation incentive payments. Part of that program includes a [...]