Fitch Affirms Home Loan Services' RESI Servicer Ratings.

NEW YORK -- Fitch Ratings affirms Home Loan Services' (HLS) residential primary servicer ratings for Alt-A and subprime products at 'RPS2'. Fitch also affirms HLS's residential special servicer rating at 'RSS2-'. The primary servicer ratings are based on the company's experienced management team, established loan administration procedures and solid internal control environment. The special servicer rating reflects HLS' focused default management and asset liquidation practices. The ratings also reflect the financial strength of HLS's parent, Merrill Lynch Bank & Trust Co., FSB an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Merrill Lynch and Company (Merrill Lynch), both of which are rated 'AA-' by Fitch.

On Sept. 5, 2006, National City Corporation announced an agreement for Merrill Lynch to acquire the First Franklin and NationPoint origination franchise and the related servicing platform, National City Home Loan Services. On Dec. 30, 2006 the sale was completed and the servicing division was renamed Home Loan Services, Inc.

HLS continues to manage its servicing platform from Pittsburgh, PA with a call center located in the nearby suburb of Upper St. Clair. HLS has been providing branded servicing for First Franklin product since 2002 and has been servicing loans for 21 years. As of Feb. 28, 2007, HLS serviced 369,439 loans totaling over $51.6 billion, representing a 30% growth based on loan volume since December 2005.

Throughout the transition to Merrill Lynch, the senior management of HLS remained intact and overall staff turnover remained stable at 19.6%. Merrill Lynch has demonstrated its commitment to the ongoing strength of the HLS platform with significant staff build-ups in all key areas of servicing, particularly in the loss mitigation, default management and collections areas. Further financial commitments have been made to continue to upgrade HLS's already solid technology platform.

HLS continues to make process improvements across the loan servicing and default administration areas to improve servicing efficiencies and practices. During the year the servicer continued to refine and expand its loss mitigation staff and strategies and completed the implementation of a net present value model for loss mitigation strategy valuation. As of the Fitch review, HLS was in the process of implementing several initiatives to further enhance the servicing platform, including populating Merrill Lynch's website with First Franklin data, and installing workforce and optimizer management technology in the call center to improve right party contact rates, calling strategies and improve workflow management.

Fitch believes that HLS continues to provide a scalable servicing platform with an experienced management team, solid internal controls and reliable default management capabilities. However, Fitch will continue to monitor HLS's ability to maintain performance while the servicer continues to fully integrate into the Merrill Lynch culture, management and operations.

Fitch Ratings rates residential mortgage primary, master, and special servicers on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being the highest rating. Within some of these rating levels, Fitch further differentiates ratings by plus (+) and minus (-) symbols, as well as the flat rating. For more information on Fitch's residential servicer rating program, See Fitch's report 'Residential Mortgage Servicer Ratings,' dated Nov. 26, 2006, which is available on the Fitch ratings web site at www.fitchratings.com.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.