Bank of America spent $1.5 billion on legal fees in the last three months of 2010. Sometimes we have trouble imagining big numbers. In the US, our median household pretax income is about $50,000. If a household were to work for 300,000 years, it would earn $1.5 billion dollars. More on BofA writedowns is in [...]

Bank Earnings Banks have virtually doubled 3Q earnings by injecting $8.1 billion into net income from funds they had set aside to cover loan losses. The 18 commercial banks with at least $50 billion in assets earned an adjusted $17 billion in the third quarter – almost half of which came from reducing their loan-loss [...]

Interpreting Latest Existing Home Sales Data Everyone has an opinion about home sales. But most agree that new home sales are at record lows and will be slow to recover until inventory of existing homes and the foreclosure overhang are worked off in many locations around the US. Some indicators for existing home sales, however, [...]

Here we are on the 68th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day, with the mortgage banking business facing unprecedented new regulatory reforms, and what are the folks in the trenches saying? “Does anyone get the feeling mortgage banking is a ghost ship, to sail the seas endlessly, with a crew of the damned? Didn’t Disney make [...]

I usually try to keep my opinions out the daily commentary. But I am really becoming irked by the press. One day they complain about our industry having foreclosure problems and the credit crisis here in the US and in the world. And then the next day they complain about the declining rate of mortgage [...]

Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t send me a script for a Hollywood movie based on mortgage banking. Usually it is either a) zany comedy starring Ben Stiller as a loan agent who doesn’t know that the jumbo market has gone away, with Samuel L. Jackson as an irate borrower, b) an intense [...]

Do prices for the same item vary in the same area? Of course they do. A gallon of milk, or a paint brush, costs more or less in some stores than in others. Consumers, like you and me, know this but still often buy goods for more money than they have to. Convenience, loyalty, and [...]

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but have to check when you say the paint is still wet? That kind of person had better read the next paragraph. For anyone who originates loans for a living, or knows someone who does, or who didn’t comment during the HVCC [...]

Non-depository mortgage banks had some good news: the FDIC notified personnel that Colonial’s warehouse relationships would continue under BB&T, at least in the short term. Many of Colonial’s assets were purchased by BB&T, including the warehouse facility which appears to be operating “business as usual” and funding loans. There is some nervousness, however, given the [...]

Once again, things turned grim in mortgage banking. First, Taylor, Bean, & Whitaker went belly up. Not only did this impact their own employees, but its warehouse problems were widespread. In addition to that, it is rumored that hundreds of smaller banks either use/used TBW’s website help in originating mortgages on their website, or sold [...]