Comments on: Countrywide Wholesale to Eliminate all Subprime ARM Products Tomorrow

By: Rudy

Rudy — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:10:17 +0000

Countrywide’s Mozilo has made an incredible living off it’s Broker Realation Base over the last 25 years. Now he wants, along with all the Big Boys in the Industry, blame the losses on the Brokers.

My message to Mozilo and all the CEO’s of the big mortgage companies is. Hey, Greed got you your nice house in Montecito, now you need someone to blame to look good in front of your shareholders. Angelo and Cronies : don’t bit that hand that fed you for the past 25 years !!!!

By: Ann

Ann — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:40:52 +0000

Most of these lenders who were subprime came in with the wave, made tons and tons of money packaging and selling to Wall Street or selling their companies to larger ones. This is the cycle of business and there will be many more “gold rushes” in the future…it will be back to normal business for now for most lenders until the next wave..

By: Aaron

Aaron — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 16:13:38 +0000

They first spawned CHL subprime in 1997. They did it so they could IPO it off at a later date is my guess(worked their for 6 years managed a branch for 3 years). Then in 2003 all of the FSL reps could sell limited A paper products. Now The retail subprime arm Sells about 80% A paper and 15% Gov and EA and if that 5% real subprime stuff. The subprime stuff if it performs well for the next 12 months will be securitized and make them a ton of money. They do however have the risk that it will never come back. The way they are keeping it is from the 14.5BIL they borrowred that has a 24 month window on it. The Wholesale BC paper will go away in the immediate future, as it should its priced so high its a deterant to the customers anyways due to high mtg payments. Countrywide is going to batten down the hatches and get back to vanilla lending on the retail level.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:28:34 +0000

I am a broker. While I can clearly see that most of the recent mortgage closings has been in wholesale divisions there remains an abundance of lenders that are still overwhelmingly committed to the wholesale community.

Countrywide has a large investment in it retail business. The cost of closing their retail would be staggering and most likely lethal to this weakened company. They have no choice but to cut wholesales products first.

I will gladly complete with a Countrywide rep any day for a loan.

By: Tike

Tike — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 07:03:44 +0000

https://www.cwbc.com/PdfFiles/WLDBC%20CA.pdf

Here is the new rate sheet for subprime

By: Morgan Brown

Morgan Brown — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 06:26:59 +0000

Jeremy – You are right – why have all the redundancy? It would appear to me that a merge & purge would fit right in line with CW’s announced workforce reductions.

David – The amount of stock that Mozilo has sold is nothing short of staggering. I do have to say though that their subprime was decent if you had key-account discounts, although Citi does have some expanded product guidelines (how, I don’t know?) that most current subprime lenders do not.

By: Housing Wire » More Evidence that the 2007 Mortgage Vintage Will be Trouble

Housing Wire » More Evidence that the 2007 Mortgage Vintage Will be Trouble — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:16:14 +0000

[...] some subprime adjustable-rate mortgage products that Morgan Brown at the Blown Mortgage blog says are expected to be eliminated from the company’s lending menu on Sept. [...]

By: David

David — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:06:16 +0000

Rumor has it that BoA is going to bankroll them another billion to help the out. If they reduce the staff by 20,000 the reduction in health care benefits with create some much needed cash flow. They will survive on the prime lending side only because the major banks won’t put together a sales force to push the mortgages, So in a way I don’t think the fed will let CW fail simply because of the sales machine that they have. In the future once the dust settles BOA might offer a buyout but there debt load it to high right now. The CEO of CW has built the largest mortgage company in the world and made millions in the process, the simple fact that he has not brought any of the company stock over the past few years but has sold millions of it, tells us that the jig is up. Going forward we need more honesty from the leaders in the industry, the people to whom we have put our unearned trust into because we feel they must be honest because the accomplishments and titles. This is just one man’s opinion of what’s going on.

By: David

David — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:53:40 +0000

Countrywide’s have been horrible on the subprime side for the past 5 months. I priced out a loan back in may before all the stuff hit the fan and the rates on the 30 year fixed were horrible, So I sent most of my business to Citi who had decent rates. Personally I have never been impressed with countrywide’s service and most of their customers whom I talk with could not wait get away from them. They do a good job of branding the countrywide name with all the advertising but their service leaves something to be desired. Ditech is another menace to menace to the American people , they did billions of 125% loans over of the last few years. I want to puke when their latest ads come on TV.

With blogs like these the public will be able to get another view of what’s going on a really get great feedback and links to the information that the mainstream media would never want them to know.

We need a better educated public for a truly healthy economy. Where I live the government is the biggest employer so wages have increased slowly ,But property values our out of control, The starting salary for a police officer is 33,000. There is a lack of affordable housing in the area and that is very sad. the average home in a decent community is 180,000. Teachers, Policeman and fire fighters all do a job that most of us would not do, I was in law enforcement for 5 years and went into sales because I could not take care of my family on that salary with a second job and overtime. On the local levels I would like to see our local city and county officials address affordable housing. We who have children have to be concerned about the occupations they will choose because of the standard of living.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:23:30 +0000

I am just a small time banker and I do not claim to know everything about managing a lender. My question to anyone that may now is this – why would countrywide even keep FSL or SLG in existence? They cannot move the paper, Countrywide bank does not want to house that crap, and it would not help their abiltiy to get a good deal from a buyer. You would have to think that they are just bleeding from the throat every minute they are open, right?
I know we get a lot of emotional comments here, but can anyone give me an actual plan that Countrywide has to survive other than “we are the biggest and baddest in the land”?