Millennium Funding Group Folds

Just in......

Due to the current market conditions in our industry, Millennium Funding Group has elected to discontinue origination of residential mortgage loans. Effective immediately , we will no longer accept new mortgage loan applications, or issue approvals on new loans. However, in order to accomodate our borrowers, and our mortgage broker partners, we will continue to fund loans on which we have sent closing documents out through May 11, 2007.

To best serve your customers, we request that you place loans currently in the pipeline on which we have not sent closing documents to other lenders.

We regret having to take this action at this time and are hopeful we can partner with you again sometime in the near future.

If you have any question please call 360-433-6260.
Thank you for your understanding.

E-Mail to MILA Workers: Business Ends Today

Employees at wholesaler Mortgage Investment Lending Associates Inc. (MILA) got an unpleasant surprise when they opened their e-mail last Friday: "It is with deep regret that due to ongoing negative market conditions MILA is forced to close its doors at the end of business today." Roughly 300 workers lost their jobs.The Mountlake Terrace, Washington-based mortgage wholesaler specialized in the subprime market through its hallmark automated online system that delivered loan commitments within seconds, minutes or hours, rather than the conventional process that could take days.The company’s mortgage lending doubled in 2003, growing from about $550 million in the prior year to well over $1 billion.The rapid growth of the business prompted founder, principal owner and CEO Layne Sapp to purchase an empty office building to house his expanding staff as MILA operations branched into other states.MILA’s growth continued into 2005 as the company made several billions of dollars in loans and brought employment to 700 workers.Foreseeing the eventual downturn in the subprime market, MILA began to pare down its workforce and move into the Alt-A market.Despite such moves, the company was unable to weather the subprime storm as loan buybacks began to haunt MILA.However long Sapp had mulled the closure of the company he began in 1989, the news for staff and brokers working for the company was swift and final.By Monday, the website was already taken down, leaving only a blank white screen.

WaMu Originations Down as Earnings Drop 20%

Loan production fell once more at Washington Mutual Inc. as quarterly earnings dropped 20% on subprime troubles, prompting the company to refinance up to $2 billion of their high-risk mortgages at fixed-interest rates below-market. Washington Mutual, the largest savings and loan in the nation, reported a net income of $784 million for the first quarter, down from $985 million in the same period a year ago. Revenue for the quarter was $3.62 billion, up from $3.59 billion one year earlier. The company’s mortgage division posted a first-quarter loss of $113 million compared with a $52 million profit during the year-ago period. Sales of subprime mortgages accounted for a quarterly loss of $164 million, overshadowing a “solid” performance in home loans to borrowers with better credit. "The decline in home loan volume from the fourth quarter was the result of the proactive steps the company has taken to reduce its subprime exposure through this point in the cycle," said Chairman and CEO Kerry Killinger.WaMu said it has scaled back its subprime portfolio and has set aside $234 million for the quarter to cover future loan losses from just $82 million in first quarter 2006. At the end of March, Washington Mutual had $20.4 billion of subprime loans, representing 9% of its $217 billion loan portfolio.The Seattle-based company reported that 71% of total volume was adjustable-rate mortgages and approximately $21.9 billion of the total was refinances.Home equity loans represented $8.3 billion of the total quarterly volume, down from $8.5 billion during the fourth quarter.Of the $37.6 in fundings for the quarter, WaMu said that about $22.7 billion came from the correspondent channel, while retail fundings represented $13.0 billion and wholesale volume accounted for $6.2 billion.Washinton Mutual said its mortgage servicing portfolio was $709.2 billion at the end of March, down from $794.8 billion one year earlier.The company indicated that it would refinance up to $2 billion of its own subprime mortgages at fixed interest rates discounted by 0.50%. WaMu has created a team of specialists to guide borrowers who are not yet delinquent but expect an ARM payment increase in the near future. Another group in the company will work with delinquent borrowers on creating financial solutions for their home loans.

Opteum Stops Taking Applications For Wholesale Channel

Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Opteum Inc. has announced that it has stopped accepting new applications through the conduit and wholesale mortgage origination channels at its subsidiary, Opteum Financial Services LLC, effectively shutting down those businesses.Opteum suggested that the actions are mostly the result of both deterioration in the secondary market for closed mortgage loans and a long-term weakening of consumer demand for mortgage products and services. "In the last month or so…the secondary market for mortgage loans has experienced significant distress and substantially increased volatility that was initially precipitated by lax underwriting standards, early payment defaults and high delinquency rates involving subprime mortgages and concerns over the general state of the U.S. housing market," said Jeffrey J. Zimmer, Chairman, President and CEO of Opteum Inc. "Recently, some secondary market investors in closed mortgage loans have changed their terms and have delayed settling whole loan trades involving certain Alt-A mortgage products. This has forced (Opteum) to re-market loans in respect of which it believed it had already obtained purchasing commitments, and has resulted in an estimated $22 million pre-tax loss associated with mortgage loans originated by (Opteum),” Zimmer continued.“Because we believe that the current adverse market environment may continue in coming quarters, we intend to exit the Conduit and Wholesale mortgage origination businesses." The Florida-based REIT also said the action will not affect the continued origination of loans through its network of 230 retail loan professionals in 24 offices across Georgia, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

WMC Mortgage Cuts 50% of Staff, ResCap Cuts 1,000

WMC Mortgage, the subprime unit of General Electric Co., announced it would eliminate more than 50% of its staff as Residential Capital, the mortgage unit of GMAC LLC said it was terminating about 1,000 positions in addition to a previous round of 1,000 layoffs from January.Burbank, California-based WMC Mortgage currently employs about 1,470 workers, but plans on slashing that number down to 700.In March, the lender disclosed that it had eliminated 460 positions.The latest round of layoffs follows news that company originations plummeted to $3.4 billion in the first quarter from $9 billion during the previous three months.In addition to the workforce reductions, offices will close in Costa Mesa and San Ramon, California, as well as Addison, Texas.WMC has recently replaced some of the company’s top executives, including the chief executive officer and chief finance officer.GE acquired WMC in 2004, but the subprime unit is estimated to represent just a fraction of a percent of profit at GE in 2006. Meanwhile, Minneapolis-based ResCap said between 600 and 700 workers would lose their jobs by midyear, and a minimum of 300 vacant positions won't be filled. The GMAC unit announced in January it would layoff 800 employees through October and would leave another 200 open job positions vacant.Following the reductions, ResCap will have about 12,000 employees.In the past weeks, the company has also seen the exit of its chief executive officer, chief financial officer and treasurer.

The List Continues To Grow

MILA goes under

As of 4/20/2007 rumor has it that Mortgage Investment Lending Associates (MILA) is going under. At 4:30 CST the web site was down with the home page listing a thank you page to all the brokers that conducted business with MILA over the years. It read
"MILA would like to thank all of the mortgage brokers we've done business with over the years. Due to current market conditions, we do not have the resources available to continue lending. It is with great regret that we announce we are ceasing operations effective April 20th, 2007."
As of 9:00pm CST the website homepage is back on but you can't access the back office.