Secondary Market

With four high-profile Washington, D.C. projects acquired over the past 12 months, national problem resolution and real estate services firm Douglas Wilson Companies has announced a new office opening in early July in D.C. The company says demand on the Eastern Seaboard for its specialized services, especially in distressed real estate, has grown.

Banker's Toolbox and van Wagenen Financial Services have teamed up to offer commercial real estate (CRE) loan stress testing software to their real estate customers. Through this partnership, van Wagenen is offering Banker's Toolbox's Crest software as a way for CRE lenders to further mitigate risk by evaluating the impact of market changes on their CRE portfolios.

Guggenheim Partners, LLC, a New York-based financial services firm with more than $100 billion in assets under supervision, is expanding its commercial real estate finance platform. The company recently announced that it has formed a new commercial real estate entity Pillar Multifamily, LLC. And this new entity has acquired certain assets and assumed certain liabilities of Bulls Capital Partners, LLC, a Fannie Mae Delegated Underwriting and Servicing multifamily lender.

Veros Real Estate Solutions said Wednesday that its technology platforms for delivering appraisals to mortgage and property investors adhere to the MISMO 2.6 format and meet new industry requirements for electronic appraisal data delivery. The company says this capability will result in new levels of appraisal quality and collateral documentation for all market participants and supports the industry's push for new levels of transparency.

The government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has been widely criticized for its substandard results, and a new report from Fitch Ratings indicates that even the small successes it's made so far may soon be reversed. The company says that within 12 months, as many as 65 percent of the prime loans modified under the federal program will likely re-default. For modifications on subprime loans, the projection is even higher - 75 percent. What's worse is that Fitch called its estimates ""conservative.""

Economic weakness continues to negatively impact commercial mortgage performance. As a result, delinquency rates increased for all commercial and multifamily mortgage investor groups in the first quarter of this year, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported Wednesday. MBA's data show that the percentage of past due loans held in commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) hit 7.24 percent in Q1. It's the highest rate recorded by the trade group since it began tracking the sector in 1997.

Freddie Mac and the American Bankers Association have extended their eight-year-old alliance -- a move the companies say will enable community banks to compete in the purchase money mortgage market, thus fueling the nation's housing recovery. The companies said their alliance provides ABA's community bank members with access to critical mortgage products, technology, and exclusive staff training on many Freddie Mac products and solutions.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to delist their common and preferred stock from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and any other national securities exchange. FHFA Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco says a voluntary delisting at this time ""simply makes sense"" and is in line with the goals of the conservatorship to protect their assets. Both GSEs' stock prices dropped nearly 40 percent on Wednesday.

Fremont General Corp. is back in business. The Anaheim, California-based company, once one of the nation's largest subprime lenders, has officially exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, following the completion of a court-approved reorganization plan by Signature Group Holdings, LLC. Under Signature's plan, Fremont changed its name to Signature Group Holdings, Inc., and the company will now focus on credit-oriented special situation lending and investments in middle-market companies on a national basis.

Subprime mortgage performance appears to have turned a corner, thanks to the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), according to Moody's Investors Service. After rising steadily for nearly four years, Moody's says the total delinquency rate among subprime loans held in residential mortgage bonds peaked at 54.4 percent in January 2010. Over the next three months, though, the delinquency rate began to decline as permanent HAMP mods doubled, and as of April, it had dropped to 51.5 percent.