Mortgage Lenders’ Stocks Plummet As Borrowers Struggle To Avoid Foreclosure

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--America’s battered residential housing sector received a couple more shocks last week. Two leading residential mortgage lenders saw their stock prices fall as the home prices continued their slump amidst a higher interest rate environment. According to Sacramento-based http://www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com, the combination of the two above factors is widely credited with forcing many mortgage borrowers into delinquency.

The greatest hit to bank shareholders that occurred in trading on Thursday, February 8, 2007, involved New Century Financial Corp. of Irvine, California. The common stock of New Century dropped $10.92 per share, or 36.2% after the company reported accounting errors on Wednesday that caused it to fail to track accurately how some of its mortgage loans are going down in value.

Wall Street analysts downgraded the New York Stock Exchange listed company, and the effects of this were felt in the Market on Friday as well.

Another stock which suffered was that of HSBC Holdings PLC, the biggest bank in Europe. HSBC is also a major force in the United States mortgage industry, and its stock dropped 2.7% on Thursday to close at $89.78. Analysts believe that the company needs to put away 20% more money to cover loans that may become uncollectible. The company itself believes that it may need close to $10.6 Billion to cover these troubled loans.

American foreclosure expert, Patrick McGilvray, J.D., President of http://www.thehomebuyingcenter.com is quoted as saying, “The world really is flat and completely interconnected today. The recklessness of mortgage banks that loaned money people to buy homes in an insanely skyrocketing residential real estate market while putting no money down and making interest-only payments is coming back to haunt them.”

Mr. McGilvray continued, “As more and more people suffer payment shock as their adjustable rate mortgage readjusts they often vainly attempt to get a home equity loan to help themselves, but this is increasingly difficult to do because they don’t have the increase in their [home] equity that they were counting on.”

This sobering reality was echoed by Merrill Lynch analyst Kenneth Bruce, who wrote in a research report, "We expect poor subprime credit trends to continue at least through 2007 and into 2008."