2010 Bank Failure Update: 125 Down & Counting. Are Mortgage Brokers Dying Off (stats)?

Bank Failure Update: 125 Failures & Counting
A total of six banks were shut down Friday, three in Georgia and one each in New Jersey, Ohio and Wisconsin, thus hitting the 125 mark for U.S. bank failures this year – and we’re not even done with the 3rd quarter. Gone are Bank of Ellijay, First Commerce Community Bank, and Peoples Bank, along with ISN Bank (NJ), Bramble Savings Bank (OH), and Maritime Savings Bank (WI). (Don’t ask me how the word “maritime” relates to Wisconsin.) Community & Southern Bank (GA) agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the 3 Georgia banks, in Pennsylvania New Century Bank’s logo, dba Customers Bank, will be placed over ISN’s Bank, in Ohio Foundation Bank is assuming the assets and deposits of Bramble, and lastly North Shore Bank is taking over Maritime. Here’s why bank failures are good for healthy banks.

Death of Mortgage Brokers?
Loans originated through mortgage brokers (as opposed to bankers) fell 51% in the second quarter, accounting for just 10.5% of originations nationwide, a new low, according to exclusive production figures compiled by National Mortgage News.

Will Private Mortgage Insurance Come Back To Replace FHA?
Mortgage insurance company PMI removed 25 MSA’s from its distressed list, but added 9. “Three steps forward, one step back” so to speak, but it is good to see more areas being removed than added and certainly helps mortgage investors eventually feel more secure about their investment. Also this comes at a good time where PMI companies will hopefully continue to step up as FHA mortgage insurance fees spike October 4.

Market Update, Preview For Week
On Friday we finished the day with mortgage security prices down (worse) between .125 and .250, and investors changed pricing depending on how much profit margin was built into rate sheets to start the day. $1.9 billion of MBS’s were sold, mostly 4% as has been the custom. The markets were pretty quiet over the weekend, and the biggest story this week will be tomorrow’s Fed meeting. No change in the fed funds rate is expected, every word and sentence will be dissected. For economic news, there is none today, but tomorrow we have Housing Starts, and later in the week Existing Home Sales, Leading Economic Indicators, Durable Goods Orders, and New Home Sales. The tone of the economic data in general was not sufficiently negative to warrant more aggressive action at this time. Anyway, the 10-yr yield sits at 2.72% and mortgages are about unchanged from Friday afternoon.

What Do Retired People Do All Day?
Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting. Well, for example, the other day my wife and I went into town and went into a shop. We were only in there for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.

We went up to him and said, “Come on, how about giving a senior citizen a break?”

He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him names. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So my wife called him names. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket.
This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote.

Personally, we didn’t care. We came into town by bus. We try to have a little fun each day now that we’re retired. It’s important at our age.