A look at stories across HousingWire’s weekend desk…with more coverage to come on bigger issues: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released Friday a list of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) performance evaluations for 39 national banks and insured federal branches of foreign banks. Of the banks, nine received an outstanding rating, 30 received a satisfactory rating and none needed to improve. None were of substantial noncompliance. Evaluations are available from the OCC’s official website. Fannie Mae issued a reminder to sellers and servicers Friday to direct mortgage insurers to provide Fannie Mae with information concerning its insured loans. One week ago, the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) released a Selling Guide Announcement as a clarification addendum to the Undisclosed Liability Policy, part of the Loan Quality Initiative. According to the announcement, lenders are not required to obtain a second credit report just before a loan closing. The reminder states that a Mortgage Insurance Disclosure form must be filled out by the insurer and sent to Fannie Mae on or before Oct. 1, 2010. That form as well as Mortgage Insurance Disclose Instructions for filling out the form are available at eFannieMae.com. Stocks were off to a solid start last week, but ended with less than impressive results, according to a report released Friday by Econoday Simply Economics analyst R. Mark Rogers. He said the week started out in favorable market conditions — Dell announced its endeavor to buy data-storage company 3PAR and Intel made public its plan to purchase Texas Instrument’s line of cable modem products — but the market boost was hindered by economic downfalls including the jump in first-time jobless claims and housing starts missing expectations. “Thursday was a big down day for equities as traders either took the news as slow growth ahead or maybe, just maybe, a double dip,” Rogers said in the report. “And though there was no economic news at week end, negative sentiment carried over to the last day of trading.” The report commented on the current state of US housing:
Recent swings in starts have been due to volatility in the multifamily component. The July improvement was led by a 32.6% bounce back in multifamily starts, following a 33.3% drop in June. The single-family component—weighed down by inventories—declined 4.2% after dipping 1.7% in June.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) announced the failure of eight banks on Friday, bringing the total numbers of failed banks in the first seven months of 2010 to 118. Four of the closings happened in California. The California Department of Financial Institutions closed The Sonoma Valley Bank in Sonoma, CA. The FDIC was named receiver and entered into a purchase agreement with San Rafael-based bank Westamerica Bank. The three branches of Sonoma Valley Bank reopened Saturday as Westamerica Bank. Los Padres Bank of Solvang, CA was closed by the Office of Thrift Supervision. The bank had liabilities exceeding assets by $100m at its time of closing. The FDIC and its purchase agreement partner, Pacific Western Bank, entered into a loss-share transaction on $579.m of Los Padres’ $770.7m assets. The California Department of Financial Institutions also closed two banks in northern California Friday, Butte Community Bank in Chico and Pacific State Bank in Stockton. Collectively the banks operated 23 branches which will reopen as Rabobank, National Association. Rabobank, National Association will pay a premium of 4.05% to the FDIC to assume all of the deposits of Butte Community Bank, but did not pay the premium for Pacific State Bank. Chicago-based ShoreBank was closed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The bank had approximately $2.16bn in total assets and $1.54bn in total deposits at its time of closing. The Office of Thrift Supervision closed the Imperial Savings and Loan Association in Martinsville, VA, which had only one branch. It will reopen today as River Community Bank, National Association. Two banks closed in Florida last week. Community National Bank at Bartow of Bartow, FL was closed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and had $67.9m in total assets and $63.7m in total deposits at its time of closing. Independent National Bank of Ocala, FL was also closed by the Comptroller with $156.2m in total assets and $141.9m in total deposits at its time of closing. Branches for both banks will reopen as branches of CenterState Bank of Florida, National Association. Write to Christine Ricciardi.
