Talk:Bank of America Home Loans/Archives/2013

Flag for Deletion?

This article should frankly be deleted. Several reasons:

1) Most egregiously, the article provides very little information that should appear in a comprehensive encyclopedia, and rather reads entirely like a business press release. People do not come to Wikipedia looking for an advertisement on the usefulness of BofA's Home Loan products. There is no criticism, controversy, or anything else of the kind mentioned. Given the article's content, nor could there be, since everything in this article is product selling points and organizational trivia, rather than anything relevant to the sort of person who would be using this page.

2) There is no real reason to have a separate page devoted to BofA Home Loans. The useful content of the article (which, as per above, is not much) could be rolled into the main BofA article.

3) Finally, having an article like this allows for an (unfortunately, legitimate) redirect from "Countrywide Home Loans." That article is in fact one that Wikipedia should have, that does not appear to have been written yet. Adding information about that controversial subject to this article would make it cumbersome. Having the redirect here is confusing to new users, but is legitimate because this is, in fact, the business entity that contain Countrywide now. The best solution is deletion of the article. Boisenberries (talk) 00:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Why is there no Countrywide wiki entry?

Why can't I get to a Countrywide entry?

Cleanup

OK Wiki experts...what's left to clean up in this article? 66.214.86.9 00:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Additional class action lawsuit information:

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/primenewswire/125003.htm - August 14, 2007 - filing of a class action representing shareholders against management. Additional reference: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-schatz-nobel-izard-pc-announces-class-action-lawsuit-/2007/08/15/2863398.htm

http://originatortimes.com/content/templates/standard.aspx?articleid=1096&zoneid=5 - May 31, 2005 - $30 million settlement of a previous class action lawsuit about working conditions. Additional reference: http://wagelaw.typepad.com/wage_law/settlements/index.html. (Commentary: "We had never actually seen or heard of a company paying out $30 million to settle a meritless claim, so we looked more closely at the case. After reviewing the facts and the publicly available evidence, we still think we've never seen or heard of a company paying out $30 million to settle a meritless claim.")

http://www.alta.org/indynews/news.cfm?newsID=465 - June 7, 2004 - fraud lawsuit against Countrywide regarding closing costs on mortgages

Are all the risk factors from the company's current annual report reflected in the article?

Is there publicly available information about the company's participation in the trend towards outsourcing IT work to India?

VisitorTalk 06:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Logo cleanup

The Countrywide Home Loans (CHL) logo is helpful, but not quite correct. CHL is actually just part of Countrywide Financial Corporation (CFC) (along with Countrywide Bank, etc.) It would be better to use a CFC logo. Anyone have one uploaded? 76.172.194.56 (talk) 06:36, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

POV / timeliness issues

The first part of the article reads a bit like a company press release and fails to cover the type of mortgage lending CFC was engaged in(subprime? alt-a?). Also because the financial info ends in 2005, everything looks hunky-dory. I am not suggesting a YTD analysis, but updating to 2006 would help some. Usspequod 05:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

2005 is pretty old--there's been one 10-K and a couple of 8-Ks since then, so newer data are definitely available. Sciprogrammer 08:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

A quick look turns up many recent SEC filings--there's plenty of recent data. Here's a link to the latest quarterly report [1]. Sciprogrammer 08:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Countrywide has a comprehensive investor relations area on their website, including free download of annual reports in pdf format. According to the 2006 annual report, Consumer Markets Division, which handles primarily "A-paper," funded $119 billion; Full Spectrum Lending Division, which handles primarily subprime loans, funded $35 billion; Wholesale Lending Division, which handles both prime and subprime loans through a network of brokers, funded $89 billion; and Corresponding Lending Division, which purchases both prime and subprime loans from other originators, funded $187 billion.

Page 6 of the annual report (page 8 of the pdf) states, "It is important to note that Countrywide is a mortgage lender, not a monoline nonprime lender. Our objective is to participate in all segments of the broader mortgage market, but limit our nonprime exposure. Nonprime loans comprised only 9% of our total production in 2006. Moreover, our strategy is to sell the nonprime loans we produce, primarily through the process of securitization." This is part of Countrywide Chairman Angelo Mozilo's letter to shareholders. VisitorTalk 22:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This 9% amounts to say $40 billion dollars, which the securities holders will be really unhappy about losing. The "A-Paper" mentioned was given by the rating agency that was paid for by CFC. This rating scheme is a hot topic. Many jumbos are no longer sufficiently collateralized by the properties. Read recent CFC statements on impairment. This has gone a long way to to undermine the confidence in the secondary market, and, ergo, CFC's liquidity. The wisdom of the marketplace is strongly at odds with the 2006 annual report.Usspequod 03:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This article needs to be completely rewritten in light of recent news reportage starting with Gretchen Morgenson's multi-page Inside the Countrywide Lending Spree, New York Times, 2007-08-29. As to subprime lending ref, my bad; please substitute jumbo, non-conforming, over 95% loan to value mortgages, which are subject to higher delinquincy or declining property values. Usspequod 23:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Peacock?

In re: edit 23:05, 25 August 2007 Hu12 (rmv peacock): In order to understand their large part in the current secondary mortgage crisis, I have tried to state the magnitude of their involvement. These crises have aleady amounted to about $1 trillion in emergency liquidity from central banks. To not mention this is like leaving out any one of National City Bank (New York City), Morgan Bank and Chase Manhattan out of the events leading to the Crash of 1929. Significant rewrites are needed for WaMu and numerous investment banks.

In my view, the existing article, already contains peacock in mentioning its run up in stock value. The rest of the article reads like a submission to the SEC or to stock holders putting its best face forward to the regulators and others. This bland reportage is singularly uninformative while ignoring the real problems of the company.

Is the following any better?

"In 2006 Countrywide financed about 17 to 20% of all mortgages in the Unites States, at a value of about 3½% of United States GDP, a proprtion greater than any other single mortgage lender."

Usspequod 19:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Countrywide six

Do a google search for "Countrywide Six". This is a term which has gained currency in referrence to the six Democrats who got sweetheart mortgage deasl from Countrywide. This need to be explored for addition to this article. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 05:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Obama comments

Do the statements

It was also reported that "Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois". The "rate" Obama received on his loan was below average for that area of "Illinois". Obama paid no "origination fees" or "discount fees" as his constituents in "Chicago" did to reduce their interest rate. [19]

have anything to do with Countrywide? I don't see any relationship between Northern Trust and Countrywide.

Also, are all the "quoted" items here intended to be links? 24.233.161.209 (talk) 01:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the content and kept the link to source the Johnson resignation; what do you think? Flowanda | Talk 03:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems fine - the Johnson comment is Countrywide related. 66.165.176.60 (talk) 15:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Bank of America Home Loans I need to know about House in Paris,Texas at 3524 County Road 32500 Paris,Texas 75460 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.129.152.48 (talk) 23:49, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Countrywide Financial as historical entity

I realize that Countrywide was bought and taken over by BAC and in a sense the up-to-date edits and page name change make sense. However, there is something weird about looking up the entry for Countrywide and getting shown an entry about a still active mortgage division of BAC. I don't know if there is a policy about this kind of stuff, and I realize it is commonly done for companies as they merge or get bought... that the page reflects the *current* version of the company. What I wonder is if that is appropriate in situations where the previous, very different state of the company is historically notable and significant. The same kind of situation is happening now with Continental Airlines.

Imagine if East Germany was just a redirect to modern Germany. Or White Star Line of Titanic ad Britannic fame was just a redirect to Cunard Line or Carnival Corporation and all the material was in just some subsection. New Amsterdam talks about the very early period of what would become New York City.

Wikipedia is not supposed to be an up-to-date business directory, but an encyclopedia... a reader looking up "Countrywide Financial" is not looking for information about the current unit of BAC... they want to learn about the controversial mortgage lender that experienced hyperbolic growth, played a key role in the recent mortgage crisis, and was the poster-child for subprime mortgage problems in media, politics, and culture. Current readers get none of that unless they wade past the drab unit descriptions and financial reports of the current entity to get to more dense Current Events section. The History section is a joke, summarizing an almost 30-year-old company in two sentences: They were founded and had a mediocre stock price. Then things went really well.

Moved here

This is just poorly written so I moved it here. The whole article needs to be rewritten: "This guideline was not established by Countrywide, but rather the investors to whom they sold their loans. However Countrywide had no qualms in following through despite it knowing those families would likely fail to make monthly payments: these loans would be sold to investors shortly after anyway. Employees were given scripts as a sales aid when talking to customers about taking out loans. " --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 07:17, 21 May 2011 (UTC) I don't know whether the solution is to simple rename the page back to Countrywide Financial, heavily edit it, and then create a new page for BAC Home Mortgage, or if a new Countrywide entry is need to start from scratch. But I don't think the current entry properly reflects what should be. --Marcinjeske (talk) 02:36, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I would start by working on the history section. If/when it is expanded enough, you can copy it over as the lead of a new Countrywide Financial page. II | (t - c) 02:52, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Countrywide Financial as a separate article

This has been mentioned in a few of the threads above, it makes more sense to have separate article on Countrywide Financial. CF has its own very notable history prior to the BOA purchase and BOA Home Loans existed prior to its purchase of CF. --PinkBull 14:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)