... when, in truth, maybe we shouldn't have been. HW readers might recall our earlier coverage of MGIC's earnings call for Q2 in which the company all but admitted that 2008 vintage mortgage loans are performing like those from 2007. Which is to say, junk.
A deconstruction of...
Ever wondered what becomes of the in-need families that get a new home free and clear as part of the hit television series "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"? Wonder no more, at least in one family's case:
More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC's "Extreme Makeover" team demolish a family's decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in...
We were thinking of covering rising non-performing assets at Birmingham, Ala.-based Superior Bancorp, who saw its NPAs rise well ahead of loss reserves during the second quarter. The bank saw its allowance for loan losses fall to just 69 percent of total nonperforming loans, down from 160 percent coverage one year earlier and 90 percent to start the year.
But then we saw that...
When -- if? -- the U.S. private-party securitization market fires back up, RMBS deals are going to face a more stringent -- realistic? -- set of criteria from at least one rating agency; Fitch Ratings on Thursday unveiled a series of enhancements to its U.S. residential mortgage loss model, known as ResiLogic.
The latest revisions to the model will impact...
A woman in Massachusetts faxed a note to her lender at 2:30pm -- 3 hours before her house was scheduled to be auctioned off in foreclosure -- informing them that she intended to kill herself. And she followed through on her threat, right before interested buyers began showing up to bid on the property, too.
...
Bloomberg's Money & Politics featured HW's Richard Bitner on a panel discussing Wednesday's passage of a sweeping housing aid package by the House of Representatives.
Note that he's sandwiched in as the independent, expert industry voice between a CRL rep and a spokesman from the MBA -- exactly what we think has been missing from the debate.
A piece today at Bloomberg co-authored by Bob Ivry marks the financial news outlet's "come to Jesus" moment with the REO industry, and reading it is certainly amusing for anyone that's actually spent time working in the space. (BTW, Bob, if you're ever doing another story on this, we're here for you on background.)
The crux of the article, however, lies here:
...
For those that missed it, HW's Richard Bitner hit it out of the part last night on The Daily Show. Enjoy:
For those interested to know, our very own Richard Bitner will be on The Daily Show tonight, talking about his new book and the housing mess. This is a very big deal, at least for me a publisher, as I don't think any other real estate publication -- trade or...
Last week, HW managing director Richard Bitner made the media rounds to tout his new book, Confessions of a Subprime Lender. One of the appearances was on none other than Larry King Live, which means we now officially can say that Larry King has uttered the words "Housing Wire dot com."
Bitner managed to...
