Archive for August, 2007

BB&T to Acquire Collateral Real Estate Capital LLC

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!BB&T is in the process of buying Collateral Real Estate Capital LLC out of Birmingham, Alabama. Collateral is a 10 billion dollar loan servicing company that has a portfolio in 43 states.
I have been wondering when the roll [...]

23Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Leona Helmsley and the Million Dollar Crypt

With the passing of Leona Helmsley this week, a true character in the world of real estate leaves the scene. While Donald Trump captures the paparazzi headlines these days, Leona captured them in the eighties. The former real estate agent who married mogul Harry Helmsley was a pure character. She is famously know still as the [...]

23Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

35,000 Mortgage Fraud Reports to the FBI in 2006

With the rise in foreclosures, the FBI is taking a more aggressive stand against mortgage fraud. The bureau has seen a tripling of cases since 2003, form 436 to over 1,200 in 2006, and the FBI is throwing more and more resources at the problem. But the reality is that these fraud cases are coming [...]

23Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Accredited Home Lenders Shutting Down Retail Operations

It looks like Accredited Home Lenders could not survive and will stop funding loans moving forward in an attempt to save the remnants of their wholesales business. Just last week they were trying to force Lone Star Fund to complete the purchase of the company, now they are running into the wall so many lending [...]

22Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Judge Releases Funds From HomeBanc To Lawyers Left Holding the Bag

A Delaware Bankruptcy judge has approved a deal that would let HomeBanc to fund the loans that they promised to, and left Georgian attorneys scrambling to fund in in the interim. As we covered before, a quirk in Georgia law created the scenario that attorneys in Georgia were forced to cover loans at the table [...]

22Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Top 10 Cities For Foreclosure in July, 2007

Six California cities were in the top 10 nationwide in foreclosure activity in the newest survey released by Realtytrac. Detroit led the way in the survey with a 70 percent increase in foreclosures, or 1 in every 97 households. That is a truly amazing number if you think about it.
Top 10 Cities For Foreclosure in [...]

22Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Mike Ready, Real Estate Agent, Tells an Interesting Story of Perseverance

LeRoy, Illinois real estate agent was much more pleased with his most recent closing than most agents. It was his first in 2 years, but his business was not affected by the slowdown in the market, instead after suffering through a catastrophic accident that left Mike Ready in a wheelchair. Ready has returned to selling real [...]

21Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Lowes Showing Better Than Expected Results

Many who are watching the housing slump are keeping an eye on Lowes and Home Depot. The two home repair giants are great indicators on how consumers are spending on home repairs and upgrades. Lowes surprised analysts showing improved earnings for the second quarter up to 67 cents a share from 60 cents the previous [...]

21Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Countrywide Update: Layoffs Occurring, Is Buffett Buying?

Since Countrywide Financial seems to be the bellweather of the housing market the past few days, lets take a look at what is happenning with the company.

Reuters has that Countrywide is cutting 500 jobs nationwide. With the lower production in loans, there will be more of this to come I fear. Presently Countrywide has [...]

21Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

GreenPoint Mortgage Closed By Capital One

What’s in Your Wallet? Not GreenPoint Mortgage now that Capital One jettisons the ailing mortgage company. Today GreenPoint is worth nothing, but when Capital One purchased the company a year ago for 13.2 Billion dollars the company was a high flyer.
GreenPoint is the newest casualty of the credit crunch as their business was built [...]

20Aug2007 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued