News

In an effort to broaden its geographic diversity on a selective basis, Los Angeles-based Mesa West Capital has opened a new office in New York. The privately-held commercial real estate portfolio lender provides first-mortgage loans on office, industrial, retail, flagged hotels, and multifamily assets primarily in the Western United States, and says it has over $1 billion to deploy in 2010.

In an effort to bring sophisticated business intelligence tools to the mortgage marketplace, AllRegs, headquartered in Eagan, Minnesota, and Denver-based Motivity Solutionc, Inc., have joined forces. Both AllRegs and Motivity were recipients of the 2009 Mortgage Technology magazine award. Through this collaboration, the companies plan to implement intelligence around mortgage lender product and guideline information.

Problems in the commercial real estate sector have put Congress on the offensive. House members are particularly concerned with guidance issued be federal banking regulators, advising lenders to extend or restructure loans backed by income-producing or development properties. Lawmakers say there are indications these loans are not being serviced properly, and evidence that regulators themselves are triggering defaults by encouraging lenders to write down the value of performing loans when payments are current.

The slew of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the mortgage industry last year launched a trend that will accelerate in 2010 and 2011, according to recent predictions by the investment bank Berkery Noyes. Lenders, vendors, and servicers will continue to embrace tactical acquisitions to shore up product lines, capture customers, increase market share, and ensure they are prepared for the next wave of forward moving originations, Berkery Noyes said.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sent cease-and-desist letters to 30 law firms and real estate companies this week ordering them to stop abrupt and illegal evictions of tenants of foreclosed properties. Blumenthal says his office has received complaints from tenants who were illegally forced out of rental homes after their landlords' properties were foreclosed - a violation of the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) signed into law last year.

For the week ending January 29, 2010, mortgage rates inched down further and mortgage applications continued to increase, according to the Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, jumped 21 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from the prior week.

Overdue loans in pools of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) climbed to 6.49 percent in January, according to a report issued this week by Trepp LLC, a New York-based company that tracks the commercial real estate market. That figure is up 42 basis points from the 6.07 percent delinquency rate in December, and Trepp says it's the highest delinquency level in the history of the CMBS industry.

The Corvus Group, a Washington, D.C.-area firm with nearly $10 billion of real estate assets under management from failed banks, has formed a Troubled Asset Advisory Group (Corvus TAAG). The group, based in Chicago, says it provides specialized staffing and advisory services to companies involved with troubled and distressed commercial real estate and homebuilder/residential development debt.

The appointment of Douglas Moritz as associate VP of multifamily at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) was announced Monday by John A. Courson, president and CEO of the company. ""Doug is a seasoned real estate finance professional whose experience spans more than twenty years in the commercial/multifamily industry,"" Courson said.

Contrary to popular belief, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says financing for new commercial and multifamily mortgages is on the rise. According to a quarterly survey released by MBA Tuesday at its Commercial Real Estate Finance convention in Las Vegas, commercial and multifamily mortgage loan originations were 12 percent higher in the fourth quarter of 2009 than during the same period last year, and 15 percent higher than the third quarter of 2009.