Mortgage Debt & Home Equity

Private Equity Works on Its Image Problem

01/31/12

Bloomberg out with an interesting story about how private equity firms are buying single family homes at foreclosure to rent out. It surprises me that there is real interest in what remains a relatively small scale, highly heterogeneous asset.

[more]

Foreclosure Timelines and Mortgage Delinquency: More Evidence from Bankruptcy

01/12/12

At the end of a lively session yesterday at Duke Law School featuring Professor Stephen Ware of University of Kansas Law School, there was a brief discussion of whether shorter foreclosure timelines and clearer rules would promote more workouts of delinquent mortgages.

[more]

What is the Relationship Between Credit Cards and Mortgage Delinquency?

01/10/12

Previously I mentioned this new paper on homeowners in bankruptcy in the American Bankruptcy Law Journal. The central goal of the paper was to investigate what makes homeowners more or less likely to have mortgage troubles as they head into bankruptcy. One of the notable findings is that, across all the models, credit access had a significant effect on keeping mortgages current and avoiding foreclosure initiation (specifics l

[more]

The Fed on Mortgage Servicing

01/07/12

I had the privilege today of hearing Federal Reserve Board Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin deliver the keynote address to the Section on Financial Institutions at the American Association of Law Schools Annual Meeting.  Governor Bloom Raskin's topic: mortgage servicing, which is not something the Fed has previously addressed.  I strongly commend her speech to you.

[more]

The Restatement of Property and the Road to Mortgagocracy

01/05/12

I recently did a string of blog posts of the Permanent Editorial Board for the UCC's Report on the enforcement of negotiable mortgage notes. I'm still planning a final installment there, but I came across another document that just floored me in showing how across another American Law Institute product that just floored me in how deeply captured and compromised part of the legal elite is.  

[more]

MBIA v. Countrywide Ruling

01/04/12

There's been a lot of media coverage of the recent ruling of the NY Supreme Court (that's the trial court, not the final Court of Appeals) in MBIA v. Countrywide, a suit by the monoline bond insurer against Countrywide for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, etc. that induced it to insure Countrywide's mortgage-backed securities. This and Syncora's similar suit are being carefully watched because they are the MBS litigation that is the farthest along and thus seen as a belleweather for other rep and warranty suits.

[more]

Principal Write-Down Pilot Program in Massachusetts

01/03/12

A Boston nonprofit, Boston Community Capital, is teaming up with some financial institutions, in particular Bank of America, in a pilot program that has the effect of writing down mortgages to close to home value. http://www.npr.org/2012/01/02/143601604/in-mortgage-crisis-some-banks-agree-to-cut-losses

[more]

A New Theory of the Role of the GSEs in the Housing Bubble

12/31/11

Bill Black has an interesting new take on the role of Fannie and Freddie in the housing bubble. He sees their investment in non-prime mortgages as being driven by executive compensation, rather than a fight for market share against investment bank securitization conduits or govt affordable housing policy.

[more]

More Rot in the OCC Foreclosure Reviews

12/27/11

Michael Olenick, Gretchen Morgenson, and Yves Smith have all written pretty damning things about the

[more]