August 02, 2007

FLASH: As predicted, American Home Mortgage lays everyone off, shuts doors on Friday. Housing crash and mortgage meltdown now spinning out of control

7,409 employees - gone

Hopes and dreams - gone

All stockholder equity - gone

Tens of thousands of potential homedebtors - gone

Their corrupt list of co-conspirators - here for all to see

And remember, this wasn't a subprime lender - they were mainly prime and Alt-A (Liar's Loans). Anyone questioning the housing crash and mortgage meltdown now? DOLTS!

Here's the email from the CEO getting rid of all the employees (get used to these America):

“It is with great sadness I announce today that American Home Mortgage has been forced to close. Unfortunately, the market conditions in both the secondary mortgage market as well as the national real estate market have deteriorated to the point that our business is no longer viable,” Strauss wrote.

Here's the update on their closure:

NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Mortgage lender American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. is closing its doors on Friday, and has told employees they will be laid off, according to Newsday, citing an e-mail to employees from Chief Executive Michael Strauss.

The company said on Tuesday it could no longer fund home loans and might sell off its assets, after its lenders cut off access to credit. It said on its Web site it is no longer accepting home loan applications.

"Bankruptcy is the next logical step for them," said Steve DeLaney, analyst at JPM Securities in Atlanta.

And here's Forbes from July 20th predicting that all would be well (he he he):

American Home Mortgage Back On Track?

Talk about a rebound! Although American Home Mortgage Investment hasn’t recovered all of the value it lost when the stock plunged on Thursday following a rumor that Lehman Brothers had yanked its credit line, it has certainly made up lost ground.

Another boost to American Homes shares may have been a research note put out by RBC Capital Markets analyst James Ackor saying the stock tumbled on Thursday well below its value

45 comments:

Unknown said...

Come now Keith. We are clearly all "dopes" for thinking this way. Nothing but a bunch of bitter renters.

*nyuk nyuk nyuk* :-)

Anonymous said...

I'm glad these criminal syndicates are being shut down. The sooner, the better. They have done more than enough to damage the economy.

Anonymous said...

There's a cold going around and you'd better get the medicine FAST. Once symptoms set in, I figure you have about three weeks to live.
AHM was recruiting us tenaciously, telling us to close our doors and join their new branch office - that there's no one else like them. They were even in lease negotiations for the office across from ours! There's only a bunch of furniture in there now, and our landlord is still waiting on AHM corporate to sign the lease...it's crazy how they'll let 'em go till the bitter bitter end...

Anonymous said...

Time to head to the bunker

Let me know when its over

Anonymous said...

To quote Mr. Sulu from Star Trek VI:

My.......GOD......

Shields......

SHIELDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I'm shorting every thing that moves tomorrow

Anonymous said...

1929

Anonymous said...

FROM WAMU REP:

I'm sure you are all seeing a flood of emails from lenders about the current market situation. Following are some of the thoughts I share with our management:

We believe the market is in a state of crisis that has not yet been recognized by the media, not just on ALT-A and sub-prime loans, but on all mortgage debt.

The pipelines have basically been cut off to the entire mortgage industry and fundings sources are limited to temporary sources such as bank balance sheets, We are in an extremely good position at WAMU in terms of liquidity, but even the largest of banks do have liquidity constraints.

Expect: pricing to continue to go up for all loans, industry-wide. Increases may be higher in a shorter period of time than we have seen in the past.

Credit: will be tightening - higher ficos will likely be required and low doc loans will be more difficult to obtain

Small Lenders - may be in a position where they have no funds to fund loans

Brokers - please consider locking and funding any loan you have as soon as you can. Be prepared for non-bank lenders that are unable to perform on commitments.

This is not a WAMU issue, this is an industry issue. It is a good time to be a big bank like WAMU with the commitment to our brokers and mortgage loans!

Anonymous said...

I am certain this will throw a bit of cold water on the recent positive market activity. Its odd, that nasty housing news hits & the market drops, a few days or a week goes by and everyone forgets and goes back to being influenced by various economic cheerleaders. Then another rnegative housing piece comes out, like this and we start all over again. Its as if the markets suffer Attention Deficit Disorder and they have no short term memory, but each time negative housing data comes up it triggers their long term memory and they react.

The trolls seem to follow this pattern, silence when negative news spikes & euphoria when its forgotten and postive economic indicators occur. Manic-depressent, bi-polar, mood swings and hot flashes. I've been steady neddie accumulating cash and minimizing debt & portfolio exposure focusing on economic fundamentals which all say there is just something plain weird/odd with the economy in general and that housing is the canary in the cave. Glad I work for the government is all I got to say.

Good Luck!!

Anonymous said...

But DOPES said that everything was okay...

Anonymous said...

DOPES was cheerleading that AHM stock was up today!

Anonymous said...

DOPES or whomever thought that AHM going up today was a good sign is the true dope. Classic short covering, last breath of life from the dying beast.

Rust in pieces, AHM

blogger said...

But iPhones were selling!

Anonymous said...

>>>And remember, this wasn't a subprime lender - they were mainly prime and Alt-A (Liar's Loans). Anyone questioning the housing crash and mortgage meltdown now? DOLTS!<<<

this bud is for you dopes....

Anonymous said...

>>>> Anonymous said...

To quote Mr. Sulu from Star Trek VI:

My.......GOD......

Shields......

SHIELDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

August 02, 2007 11:44 PM <<<<


sulu was a atheist.

Anonymous said...

now , we wait on indymac and countrywide....

Anonymous said...

This can't be happening, the stock market, the Iphones, I'm so confused.

Anonymous said...

Well, this will really put some additional housing supply on the market in the OC while simultaneously boasting local demand for Ramen!! SHelves will be bare soon, as the remaining Irvine CA mortgage lenders implode!!

Anonymous said...

Der Statue of Liberty ist Kaput!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I will personally hire all 7400 AHM employees selling iPhones.

Tell all the laid off dopes to report to the nearest Apple Store on Monday!

iPhones are projected to replace the entire real estate industry within 3 years! (Buy APPLE stock!)

Anonymous said...

This may seem a bit off-topic, but it's not. Follow along with me.

I've been looking at my portfolio holdings this past week and decided to see how things were going over at American Funds (one of the largest mutual fund holding companies in the US). At the behest of a financial planner, I've socked away a small amount of money in their intermediate bond fund (AIBAX). An examination of this fund using either Google Financial or finance.yahoo.com shows fairly benign holdings, although not a great return on investment (this is a hedge for a down equity market).

But if you look at this fund over at the american funds website, it's a disaster. Why? Scroll down on their web page and look at the holdings (portfolio summary). Yowsa! 33% of the funds holdings are in mortgage-backed securities.

By tomorrow at 4:00 PM, my money in that fund will be moved elsewhere.

Word to the wise...if you own a bond fund, take a close look at it's holdings.

Anonymous said...

More employees out of work ... more foreclosures ... lower and lower real-estate prices.

Now, with a war (we started for no reason) costing us roughly 12-billion a month, no wonder so many believe there is no hope for our economy recovering.

Anonymous said...

Man, where's the MSM stories about the 800 million dollars worth of homedebtors that were sitting at the closing table expecting their loan? Can you imagine the look on their faces when they were told "sorry, we don't have your money!"

How many of them terminated leases and moved out already?

Did AHM probably created a whole new class of homeless people?

Anonymous said...

I forget - is DOPES the same guy as QWEEFER?

Anonymous said...

Once ARMS begin to reset in larger numbers, many more will fall.

This is the market applying corrections - reality is a brutal unforgiving force.

Anonymous said...

hey, I bought an iPhone!!
but the money I made buying puts on New Century, LEND and now AHM more than make up for it.

Anonymous said...

Is this why Suzanne's number has been disconnected?

Bill said...

HUH! Seams the Stock Market is obviously trading on a other planet.

Anonymous said...

WHEWWWW ..AHM offered me big bucks a while back to come and join them, but despite being offered a hefty signing bonus, I decided wasn't going to leave the Queen Mary for that barg...Good luck Bitches!!

We at CWL will take your biz and keep climbing to the top! Thank you, thank you verrrry much.....

Unknown said...

I guessed this was coming but figured they'd last a couple more weeks....truly pathetic.

Some sad fools probably got caught in the tiny suckers rally on AHM today.

Anyone remember Accedited Home Lenders (LEND)? They just avoided a delisting threat today by submitting their 2006 filings at the last minute yesterday. They are trying some lame last ditch attempt to save what remains by teaming with Lone Star. Market isn't buying it, they tanked 35% to $5.31 today.

Anonymous said...

I bought a Krispy Kreme donut today so that means the economy is doing great. People don't buy donuts in a bad economy.

Anonymous said...

According the Marketwatch, Senator Chris dodd called IndyMac Bank's CEO Mike Perry and asked how congress could step in to help the mortgage industry.

I think we need to flood that bastard Dodd with more emails and phone calls. He just doesn't get it. No bailouts for the banks that enabled this mess.

Unknown said...

To all you guys enjoying the show, this is just a warm up for what can potentially happen.

The fall of AHM and they other lenders doesn't measure up to what will happen if our all time favorite Alt-A provider dies.

Yes, I'm talking about IndyMac.

Some people have been baffled at how IndyMac didn't make a big plunge at all after announcing their %57 drop in profit. The reason why, and the big difference is that unlike these other "lenders", IndyMac is an actual bank. Right now banks are considered to be solid and able to weather the storm of major downturns.

If IndyMac should fall it will mean that there has been a bank failure. The damage to the market and investor confidence would be huge.

Anonymous said...

Check out a one year stock chart on (LEND) Accredited Home Lenders.

What a fricken nightmare for anyone long that stock.


But those that shorted, "BOO-YAHHHH!!!!"

Anonymous said...

From what I've read AHM was esentially making no doc and subprime loans under the guise of alt-a . . . I wonder if this was more commonplace amongst larger lenders as well. Also, the article states they were the 10th largest mortgage retailer as of 2006, ouch.

This might be a preview of some VERY scary things to come.

Anonymous said...

"Classic short covering, last breath of life from the dying beast."

And a heck of a Dead Cat Bounce. Splat.

Anonymous said...

Listen to Peter !

http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?clipSRC=mms://media2.bloomberg.com/cache/vJck9ysOID2E.asf

whydibuy said...

OK Fess up! Which idiot paid $ 4.50 per share for AHM today? Its gotta be a person who doesn't like money. Because now hes sure got alot less of it.

Anonymous said...

" Its odd, that nasty housing news hits & the market drops, a few days or a week goes by and everyone forgets and goes back to being influenced by various economic cheerleaders."

Everyone has ADD -- until the pocket is empty.

Unknown said...

I was in the lending industry a year ago and got out before this whole fiasco. I saw it just getting too loose... then it began to tighten just before I got out.

I still get emails from one of the more "responsible" lenders that I worked with and they remarked on this whole thing to all of their brokers. Interesting email.

Check out the email at:

http://thereibrain.com/realestate-blog/?p=86

This whole thing isn't close to being over yet.

Trevor M.
thereibrain.com

Anonymous said...

WaMu is only okay because they haven't realized the deferred amounts on their pay-option loans. When that comes, hellooooooooo $2 stock.

Anonymous said...

Well, someone has to say it:

Buh-bye!

gregoryw said...

1500 of those jobs were on Long Island. This is the self feeding cycle with recessionary consequences. Now 1500 families can't afford to stay in the $500k+ 3br houses that dot the New York metro area. So they foreclose...on the mortgages the company they used to for sold them! The irony is so rich.

It would be devastating if Delta Financial Corporation (DFC) went under too, because they're right up the road and run a similar business.

gregoryw said...

I can't get into shorting individual stocks. Way too volatile. Check out ticker symbol SKF. Double-short every financial stock. It's brilliant, consistent, and if you have any long positions at all like mutual funds, it's an excellent hedge.

burn baby burn said...

On the up side they have Monday off no one likes going to work on Monday.