Comments on: In Case You Were Wondering: Countrywide Says It’s Fine

By: Robert D. Ashby

Robert D. Ashby — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:39:09 +0000

Morgan…you are correct in the credibility of Fitch and the others. I just posted another take on Countrywide and the lack of “love” they are receiving. I then added a bit from Mish’s insight and ended with my own take. You guys might enjoy it.

By: MattBW

MattBW — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 04:34:39 +0000

Countrywide is about as fine as the TITANIC was after it hit the berg.

This is not going to end well…..

By: EXCW

EXCW — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:37:01 +0000

I am now an Ex-CW employee–and the interesting thing is, every manager and every conference call I was on, ALL were in complete denial that there was anything going on–(Everything was juuust fine prior to the layoffs hitting) Trust me, this is a company that will lie to it’s employees, shareholders and it’s customers with absolutely zero conscience.
With stock now in the Single Digits, and Freddie starting to come clean, I think Goldman’s prediction of a 2 Trillion dollar pullback in their ability to lend will come true very soon.

Since CW’s entire business model revolves around being able to huck their loans off onto the GSEs, they are completely screwed. Don’t think they don’t know that–it is entirely obvious to the rest of the lending world.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 04:52:29 +0000

Perfect Morgan, thanks!

By: Allen

Allen — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:28:46 +0000

Countrywide told us retail employees last week that we would be getting more leads, and then terminated 20% of the Chandler sales force.

Like when I was a kid, my uncle would say, “see this hand? (wack) watch out for that hand”…

By: Morgan

Morgan — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 07:00:35 +0000

Hey Mark,

The header should be fixed it should look like this:

Published by Morgan at November 20, 2007 in Mortgage Musings and Mortgage News/Insight. 0 Comments

let me know if you’re not seeing it and i’ll tweak it some more… thanks for the heads up.

By: Morgan Brown

Morgan Brown — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 05:10:25 +0000

Paul – Great point. I have a post coming out on that announcement shortly – thanks for sharing.

All – I agree that there are not the resources nor the care about protecting or propping up Countrywide any more. I somewhat agree that it would be just the purging that would symbolize the ‘bottom’ psychologically even if it wouldn’t be in reality.

In the beginning everyone was worried about the health of Countrywide vis a vis the rest of the market and overall market infrastructure but now with money hemorrhaging every where no one cares any more – they are all covering their own asses (to use the technical term).

Robert & Fielding – I think the ratings agencies have been totally discredited and are the linchpins of the current credit crunch. Their ratings have been compromised and that is why we have the higher borrowing costs between the institutions – no one trusts the ratings and no one knows what the others hold in terms of risk. No one wants to lend money because they don’t want to make the wrong bet and be stuck holding a very, very expensive bag.

By: Paul Hiller

Paul Hiller — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:28:05 +0000

Speak of the devil.
The death knell for the pay option arm has been sounded. I just got an e-mail that C-wide sends to brokers, explaining the new qualifying calculations. Here is the pertinent stuff.

The greater of the Note Rate or the Fully Indexed Rate
A full amortizing payment
A loan amount which includes the total potential negative amortization
The resulting qualifying payment amount will be used to calculate both the Housing and the Debt-to-Income (DTI) Ratios for the loan transaction.

New York – 110% of the original loan amount
All other states – 115% of the original loan amount

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:50:08 +0000

I agree with Jeremy, nobody is propping them up (at least not long-term). Everybody is looking out for #1 right now, they don’t have the time, resources, or money to seriously save somebody else. CFC is toast, it’s just a question of “when”.

btw, am I the only one who can’t see the by-line for each post? I’m looking forward to the new contributors’ thoughts, but I can’t see who wrote each column. All I see is a headline, date, category, and tags. thx

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:25:49 +0000

Some people might say that there is a wizard behind the curtain that is trying to prop up this dead man called COuntrywide because their failure would be horrible for the economy. I am not so convinced that is true anymore. With all of the negative sentiment being perpetrated in the media about horrible lenders that do bad things to innocent homeowner’s, could it possibly help if the perceived crooked-est of the crooked goes down? I am not saying that I agree with any of those sentiments, but let’s all admit that most of the country thinks we are all a bunch of theives and that Countrywide is the leader of the gang.
Perhaps they could be the Enron, Tyco, or Adelphia that takes one for the team here.