Michael Panzner has a good post on his site about regional banks being the next front in the Credit Crisis. He mentions home equity lines (HELOCs) as a crucial piece there, referring to an article in the Financial Times. His blog entry mentions 10 banks, regional and national to scrutinise in particular: Huntington [...]

Housing wire has a very interesting piece out today, suggesting that the mortgage crisis in the U.S. has moved far beyond merely subprime and even Alt-A; Prime borrowers are now where the greatest increase in mortgage stress is being felt. After all, if Ed McMahon can default, the situation is very worrying.
“Among subprime borrowers, [...]

The risks going forward for financial institutions and their capital base are large and growing. The blog CalculatedRisk has reported on yet another story that should give chills to bankers. This one is very significant: Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
A judge recently ruled against Cleveland-based regional National City in a case involving stated income loans. [...]

The bloggers over at Calculated Risk have reported on a story making the rounds in the Internet. This story involves S&P’s downgrade of Alt-A Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBSs). The crux of the matter is that S&P misjudged how much collateral in the underlying value of the homes there was to protect these [...]

I started tracking an odd statistic that I made up in the aftermath of the last recession called the ‘Mortgage to Growth Gap’ (MGG). At the time, a lot of pundits I respected where saying that American consumers were spending right through the recession in a way that hadn’t happened before. While this [...]

First the banks won’t refinance, then they won’t restructure mortgages, now they’re pulling out all stops in this mortgage mess. They are pulling existing home equity lines of credit. That’s right, in a feeble attempt to save their sorry asses and limit credit losses, you are going to get the shaft. It’s [...]

Looking through old e-mails, I read an article from the FT in 2006 that surfaced claiming that HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland)were poised and ready to go offer loans for 125% of value. That’s right, HBOS thought it a good idea to cover 95% of the house price and loan another 30% over appraised value unsecured as a personal loan.

Now that the UK has joined the housing bust, one must ask where are the massive writedowns that have to be sitting on HBOS’ books? Why aren’t they looking to do another rights issue like RBS? I fully expect some pretty horrific things coming from HBOS as the housing crisis heats up in Britain.