Tag Archives: Wells Fargo

FitchRatings announced it will be placing U.S. residential mortgage backed securities classes on Rating Watch Negative. What brought them to this decision and what does it mean for the company?

A recent estimate of single-family tear-down starts in 2016 calculated that the number has increased from 2015’s average. A tear-down start is defined by a home that was built on land that was once previously the sight of another structure. And while these figures are only estimates, the report finds that the increase in tear-down starts in indicative of the continued recovery of the single-family housing market.

Home builders are plagued with labor and lot shortages, and it’s causing their confidence in the single-family market to waver, according to new data released this week. Overall, builder confidence in the single-family residential market has dropped by two points in June. Single-family production fell 3.9 percent for the month of May, while multifamily construction dropped 9.7 percent. Overall, housing starts declined 5.5 percent across the nation.

The National Mortgage Servicing Association (NMSA) announced the appointment of Jim Taylor, SVP of Property Preservation with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Asset Management, to lead the organization’s effort to mitigate the threat that vacant and abandoned properties pose to homeowners and communities. Taylor, a 30-year industry veteran, leads asset management and preservation of Wells Fargo’s residential servicing portfolio while caring for the interests of the communities it serves. His first order of business will be partnering with his peers and regulatory agencies to develop a comprehensive national definition for what constitutes a vacant and abandoned property and honing a strategy for the harmonization of procedure for their treatment.

Wells Fargo Home Lending announced that Liz Bryant will now lead the company’s retail sales organization reporting to Head of Mortgage Production, Michael DeVito.

Suits claiming Bank of America and Wells Fargo engaged in discriminatory lending practices in the city of Los Angeles were dismissed this week by an appellate panel in New York. Filed by the city of LA, the suits alleged the two banks targeted minority buyers with more expensive and riskier loans than white borrowers. The appellate panel ultimately sided with the original district court rulings, which stated the city failed to establish a strong enough link between the bank’s policies and any racial disparity in local homeownership.

According to the City of Philadelphia, black borrowers of Wells Fargo loans were over twice as likely to receive high-cost or high-risk loans than white borrowers, while Hispanic borrowers were around twice as likely, and home in predominantly minority neighborhoods were 4.7 times more likely to be foreclosed. Two weeks before this case, the Supreme Court had ruled that Miami could sue Bank of America for predatory lending practices that allegedly increased segregation.

An executive at Wells Fargo has announced the bank will attempt to bring back private-label bonds this year. The bank hasn’t issued bonds backed by non-government guaranteed loans since 2008, amidst the housing crisis. JPMorgan and Redwood Trust have also begun issuing these types of bond as of late.

According to billionaire Warren Buffett, Wells Fargo's CEO John Stumpf should have responded sooner to problems with its sales incentive programs which, Buffett says, were "incentivizing the wrong kind of behavior." The Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway addressed the bank's scandal on Saturday during a Q&A session with shareholders. He also discussed the firm's Q1 report and potential corporate tax cuts.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board announced that Wells Fargo had remedied the deficiencies in its 2015 resolution plan. Wells Fargo will no longer be subject to the growth restrictions which were imposed last year. The Dodd-Frank act requires resolution plans, commonly known as “living wills” which describe the company’s strategy for rapid and orderly resolution under bankruptcy in the event of material financial distress or failure of the company.