Kate Berry has covered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for American Banker since 2016. She joined the publication in 2006 covering mortgage lending and the financial crisis. Berry also has covered big banks including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. She has won five awards from the Society of American Business Writers and Editors, and has worked at several news organizations including the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Associated Press. Berry began her career as a clerk at the New York Times.
-
Among mortgage types, the new-foreclosure rate worsened the most for prime fixed-rate loans in the second quarter, indicating that unemployment has replaced product category as the biggest driver of defaults, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.
August 20 -
Joseph J. Murin and Brian Montgomery announced Tuesday that they have joined Washington consulting firm, Collingwood Group LLC.
August 18 -
Robert Couch, a former general counsel of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a former president of the Government National Mortgage Association, has started a company to help banks dispose of real estate assets.
August 14 -
Joseph J. Murin, the president of the Government National Mortgage Association, is stepping down after just over a year at the federal agency.
August 13 -
Good news and bad for nonbanks that rely on warehouse lines; publisher gives N.Y. celeb a sweet mortgage deal; and more.
August 12 -
Two years after it abruptly stopped funding loans, Impac Mortgage Holdings, once a leader in the now-defunct alternative-A market, is coming out of hibernation.
August 11 -
If servicers appear to be failing in their implementation of the Obama administration's loan-modification program, it may be for good reason: Reunderwriting hundreds of thousands of borrowers who got low-or no-documentation mortgages just takes time.
August 7 -
The opposite of a walkaway? Tens of thousands file for bankruptcy to keep their homes — current mortgages intact; and more.
August 5 -
The unraveling of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage has left hundreds of community banks scrambling to find replacement buyers for their loans. The Ocala, Fla., company, which stopped originating loans Wednesday, has been buying roughly $1 billion of mortgages a month from 600 members of the Independent Community Bankers of America.
August 5 -
Mortgage servicers are urging the Treasury Department to relax some of the requirements of the Obama administration's loan-modification program, claiming the time-consuming process of gathering documents and collecting signatures has become a major impediment.
August 3 -
With private equity becoming harder to raise, investors hoping to clean up from the mortgage market's wreckage are turning to a vehicle that has fallen in and out of vogue over the years: the real estate investment trust. A REIT set up by Private National Mortgage Acceptance raised $335 million through an initial public offering.
July 30 -
A loan-mod outreach firm's technology evokes Big Brother; an illiquid-asset auctioneer starts a secondary market for California IOUs; and more.
July 29 -
During the boom, loans were often set up without an escrow account for property taxes and insurance, which traditionally are collected monthly by the servicer along with principal and interest. Leaving taxes and insurance out of the monthly bill made the mortgages look more affordable to borrowers (who often got hit later with a large annual or semiannual tax bill). Today, many of these subprime borrowers are trying to get loan modifications. But servicers generally require that an escrow account be created as a condition of rewriting loan terms. This is one reason that so many borrowers who get modifications redefault, observers said.
July 27 -
Freddie Mac is bringing in reinforcements to speed up the loan modification process.
July 24 -
When comparing the loan modification efforts of the top mortgage servicers, it's hard to find rhyme or reason behind their decisions, observers say.
July 23 -
-
