Bank of America Completes Countrywide Financial Purchase
Bank of America Corporation today completed its purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp. to create the nation’s leading mortgage originator and servicer.
Bank of America will focus on responsible home lending, serving as a reliable source of mortgages for the American consumer. Bank of America also will assist new and existing customers with selecting the right product to meet their needs.
“Mortgages are one of the three main cornerstone consumer financial products along with deposits and credit cards,” said Bank of America Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Lewis. “This purchase significantly increases Bank of America’s market share in consumer real estate, and as our companies combine, we believe Bank of America will benefit from excellent systems and a broad distribution network that will offer more ways to meet our customers’ credit needs.”
Zillow.com Officially Launches Zillow Mortgage Marketplace
Real estate Web site Zillow.com today announced the launch of Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, an open and transparent lending marketplace, offering borrowers an anonymous and hassle-free way to request custom loan quotes directly from registered lenders. In turn, lenders can respond to an unlimited number of loan quote requests directly from borrowers — for free. Zillow Mortgage Marketplace extends Zillow into another crucial facet of home ownership, and includes the industry’s first-ever lender public feedback system where borrowers rate the lenders they choose to contact.
OCC Is Requiring Large National Banks To Provide Mortgage Data
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is requiring large national banks that service mortgages to provide comprehensive mortgage data on a monthly basis. The required data will build upon the efforts of the HOPE NOW alliance, a cooperative effort between investors, lenders and counselors that is intended to help distressed homeowners.
In a letter to nine large national banks that account for the overwhelming majority of national bank mortgage servicing, Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan said the OCC is requiring the data “in order to assure that we have a detailed picture of the activities of national bank servicers and the performance of loans serviced by them.”
Refinance Drop Drives Decline in Mortgage Applications
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 22, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 665.1, a decrease of 19.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 822.8 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 25.8 percent compared with the previous week and was up 5.1 percent compared with the same week one year earlier. The Refinance Index decreased 30.4 percent to 2458.9 from 3533.8 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.2 percent to 358.2 from 357.6 one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 1.5 percent while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 8.4 percent. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index decreased 7.1 percent to 350.7 from 377.3 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index decreased 21.4 percent to 907.1 from 1153.4 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index decreased 3.8 percent to 261.5 from 271.8 the previous week.