LoanMarket.net - California's Largest Marketplace for Whole Loans

 

 

 

Banks saw modestly better prices for troubled loans last quarter thanks to stronger demand from vulture investors, homebuilders and other buyers.

 

Regions Financial Corp. and Synovus Financial Corp. were two asset-shedding banks that got higher prices, suggesting that lenders may have been wise to avoid dumping their bad mortgages and business loans in fire sales last summer. If prices keep firming, asset sales could accelerate through 2010.

 

"If this pricing continues this way, you'll see more and more banks sell, especially those banks that have been recapitalized," said Chris Mutascio, a managing director with Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.

 

The pricing of so-called toxic assets has been one of the banking industry's most vexing problems through the financial crisis, and it's still tricky. But public disclosures and anecdotal evidence suggest that the billions of dollars of bad loans that banks have marked down the past two years are worth substantially more than they were a year ago, market watchers said.

 

"Before, it was like, I'll give you 10 cents on the dollar," said Adam Barkstrom, managing director with Sterne, Agee & Leach. "Now [pricing is] significantly more rational. It may not be where the banks want it, but it is significantly more rational."

 

Prices moved in the right direction late last year at Regions. Executives at the Birmingham, Ala., lender said in a conference call with analysts in January that it fetched 71 cents on the dollar for $510 million in problems loans it sold...      read full article

IRVINE, Calif. – April 6, 2009 – LoanMarket.NET today announced the launch of its online marketplace for buying and selling real estate-secured note investments. The web site empowers both buyers and sellers of real estate-secured notes by creating a neutral, open marketplace that brings efficiency and full pricing transparency to the traditionally opaque secondary market for real estate-secured investments.

 

LoanMarket.NET is designed to offer both existing note investors and those interested in entering the market for the first time unprecedented access to this asset class.

 

Notes available on LoanMarket.NET come from a variety of sellers including mortgage originators, banks and lending institutions, mortgage pool investors, small private investors, and seller carry-back note holders (property sellers who provide financing to buyers in order to facilitate a sale). These sellers benefit from the simultaneous exposure of these investment opportunities to a much wider group of individual and institutional investors, resulting in better pricing and increased liquidity.

 

To enable investors to adequately determine a loan’s risk and establish an appropriate price, all notes listed for sale provide a high level of detailed information including a current market value (CMV) and photo of the underlying property (pulled within 14 days of posting), and all vital loan documentation such as the Note, the Deed of Trust, the Title...      read full article

Early entrants are rushing into the business of facilitating the trade of distressed residential real-estate debt, as the number of troubled real estate loans continues to grow. While the space remains largely in its infancy, the firms trying to build a market for note trading say they hope the current crisis can help spur a more transparent marketplace for buying and selling whole loans.

One such outfit, Irvine, Calif.-based LoanMarket.NET, said Tuesday that it had launched its online marketplace for buying and selling real estate-secured note investments.

“The market for buying individual mortgage notes from originating lenders has traditionally been available only to investors such as Wall Street investment banks, large hedge funds, and regional banks,” said LoanMarket.NET founder and president Jeff Freud, a 20-year real estate and mortgage industry veteran.

“Now small institutions and sophisticated individual investors, such as those who have traditionally invested in other debt instruments, can gain access to these income-generating notes, collecting principal and interest payments just as the former lender did for the remaining term of the loan or until a refinance or sale occurs.”

The new website uses slick technology to help investors understand what they’re purchasing, including providing a current market value (CMV) estimate and a photo of the underlying property pulled within 14 days of posting, the company says. Any real estate notes listed for sale on the site also include all...      read full article