The fallout from the real estate slow down/collapse is continuing to expand with Countrywide's announcement that it is cutting 12,000 jobs. I am sure other lenders will be following suit in time if the drop in mortgages projection is correct, thus causing more folks to not be able to pay on mortgages. Meanwhile, the Chimperator is off pissing off the Australians by his unwanted presence. Here's part of a Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090702092.html?hpid=topnews):LOS ANGELES -- Struggling mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. will cut as many as 12,000 jobs in a bid to slash costs and cope with soaring foreclosures and defaults, the company said Friday. The cuts, amounting to as much as 20 percent of its work force, are needed because the company expects new mortgages to fall about 25 percent in 2008 from this year's levels, Countrywide said.
In a letter distributed to employees, Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo called the current market cycle "the most severe in the contemporary history of our industry." "During the past two years the growth in home price appreciation has stopped dead in its tracks and in many areas of the country it has turned in the wrong direction," Mozilo said in the letter.
Earlier Friday, IndyMac Bancorp Inc. announced plans to eliminate as many as 1,000 jobs, citing difficulties from the mortgage lending and housing market downturns.
Countrywide has also shifted its loan production guidelines and now only makes loans that can be sold on the secondary market to government-backed enterprises such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or that qualify under investment requirements for its banking unit.
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