The jumbo market is making baby steps. Redwood Trust Inc. is marketing a $280 million residential mortgage-backed security, the first private deal of 2011, backed by a mix of fixed-rate and adjustable-rate mortgages. According to news on the issue, the average loan size is $978,000 and the average FICO score is 775 – pretty similar [...]

How Many Can Refi vs. How Many Qualify There was a story in the Wall Street Journal wondering “But if rates are so low, why isn’t demand for new loans picking up? For one, most borrowers who could refinance probably did so last year, when rates fell below 5% in March, August, and December. Many [...]

How Does an ARM Adjust? Holders of adjustable-rate mortgages across the country are demonstrating to complain that the rate used to calculate their loans has actually gone up. In some cases loan payments went up by 9%. “What is this ‘COFI’?” asked one borrower in California. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that the value [...]

State of Mortgage Industry Let’s start off with two basic premises. First, there has always been a range of borrowers (credit & risk-wise) that need home loans at rates that match the risk. Second, there have always been investors out there with varying degrees of appetite for risk, and demand more return for higher risk. [...]

Fed Mortgage Rate Help Waning? Let it happen or make it happen, it’s up to you! Or, with mortgage rates, it is up to the Fed. The Fed’s buying mortgage-backed securities has kept mortgage rates low, right? And one way to attract private investors to buy mortgage securities is to make the yield attractive, right? [...]

Anyone over age 40 should check out this link. (You’ll need sound.) (Thank you Paul W.) Credit Suisse Closing Subprime Unit Lime Financial, out of Oregon, is gone. “Credit Suisse is closing Lime Financial and exiting the residential mortgage origination business to focus on higher margin businesses where we have competitive advantages and strong franchises, [...]

UBS and its predecessor organizations have a long and global reputation for safeguarding the assets of the world’s wealthy people and entities. Now that the bank is buckling under the weight of its $48 billion in write downs so far this year, the Swiss government clearly recognizes how importance of keeping UBS alive and will [...]

What time of day am I most likely to have a heart attack? Answer, per a Harvard study, is that the most dangerous times for heart attack, and for all kinds of cardiovascular emergency, are the morning and during the last phase of sleep. The risk averaged 40% higher of having a heart attack between [...]

In its take on UBS and the general malaise of Swiss banking, the Economist this week said that even though predators may be circling to grab opportunities in any breakup, the “generally sorry state of its industry” may be its saving grace as “few would-be buyers have the ready cash for such a large deal.” [...]

Thornburg Mortgage, a key player in A-paper jumbo lending, has secured new lines of credit from Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Greenwich Capital, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS in order to continue buying loans from mortgage bankers and funding wholesale loans. These banks have also agreed to freeze any margin calls on Thornburg until [...]