Mortgage Servicing News articles from April 2006

Mortgage Servicing News archives from April 2006

MSRs Boost JPM's Mortgage Earnings.(J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. (New York, New York))(Mortgage Servicing Rights)
April 1, 2006... New York -- J.P. Morgan Chase said in a regulatory filing with the SEC in late March that it saw solid mortgage earnings of $1.4 billion in 2004, fueled by improved mortgage servicing results. But at the same time, the company said it expects...

Top Two Claim 25% Share.(market share)
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Countrywide Home Loans and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage had a combined servicing market share of 25.53% at year-end, the first time ever that two firms controlled more than one-quarter of the nation's housing receivables. The...

Top Residential Servicers at March 31, 2005.(mortgages)(Chart)
April 1, 2006... (Dollars in Millions) Servicing Volume % Market Mkt Shr Rk Organization Name 12/31/05 12/31/04 Change Share % pt. +/- 1 Countrywide Financial Corp. $1,111,090...

CDBG Seen as Hurricane Relief Tool.(United States. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Community Development Block Grant Program)
April 1, 2006... Washington -- With rising mortgage delinquencies along the Gulf Coast, the Bush administration is hoping lenders will continue to be patient and wait for federal housing assistance in the form of Community Development Block Grants before...

Top Subprime Servicers at 12/31/05.(Chart)
April 1, 2006... (Dollars in Millions) Total Servicing Vol. Percent Market Rk Organization Name Location 12/31/05 12/31/04 Change Share 1 Countrywide Financial Corp. Calabasas, CA ...

Card Giant Buys NFB, Parent of GreenPoint.(acquistions)
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Credit card behemoth Capital One has agreed to purchase North Fork Bancorp, Melville, N.Y., the parent of alt-A giant servicing giant GreenPoint Mortgage. Announced just as Mortgage Servicing News went to press, the McLean,...

Will Traditional MI Regain Market Share from Piggybacks?(Mortgage Insurers)
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Mortgage insurers have been complaining for years about business they've lost to "piggyback" loans but their days of griping may be waning. Thanks to rising interest rates - in particular on the short end - home-equity loans,...

New C-BASS Deal Is Firm's Biggest.(Credit-Based Asset Servicing and Securitization L.L.C.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... New York -- C-BASS here has closed on a transaction backed by approximately $951.6 million in residential mortgages in February. J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale and Merrill Lynch underwrote the approximately $937.3 million of...

NeighborWorks Targets Foreclosure Hotspots with Campaign.(foreclosures)
April 1, 2006... Washington -- NeighborWorks America is marshalling its housing counseling resources to launch a foreclosure intervention effort in a select number of cities and states that have been identified as "hotspots" of foreclosure. The...

TransUnion Eyes Servicing Market.(company forecasts)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Phoenix -- TransUnion Settlement Solutions is eyeing expanded opportunities to provide solutions to the mortgage servicing market, a senior executive at the firm told MSN recently. The company recently launched Enterprise Document and...

ID Theft a Big Issue.(Identity theft)
April 1, 2006... For ABN Amro, the case of the missing tape might seem an all's well that ends well affair. Fortunately for two million of the company's mortgage customers, a tape containing sensitive information about their mortgage accounts that "went...

Impairment Coverage Could Aid Lenders Hurt by Katrina.(flood insurance)
April 1, 2006... Raymond Reed is the chief underwriting officer of Lenpex, a Deans & Homer affiliated company. As a managing general underwriter, Lenpex provides insurance solutions and related consulting services to the mortgage lending industry. ...

Will Fannie Mae's Board Ever Come Clean?(Federal National Mortgage Association)
April 1, 2006... If you're a director of a publicly traded company who are you responsible to - (1) the executives who put you there in the first place or (2) the shareholders? If you answered #1 you can stop reading this column right here. When Fannie Mae...

Analysts See 'Modest' Growth in February Prepays.(mortgage backed securities)
April 1, 2006... Prepayment rates for conventional 30-year fixed-rate mortgages in agency mortgage-backed securities recorded "modest gains" in the February reporting period, according to Bear Stearns & Co. Overall speeds for 30-year collateral came in at a...

Servicing Is Not at Issue In Bank of America's Slip.
April 1, 2006... Charlotte, NC -- Bank of America is restating its earnings back through 2002 to reflect a change in its interpretation of accounting rules pertaining to derivative instruments used to hedge interest rate risk exposure and foreign exchange...

More 'Exotic' Loans Coming into Mortgage Portfolios.(Adjustable Rate Mortgage)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Even though federal regulators are warning about the risk of payment-option ARMs and interest-only loans, mortgage bankers aren't backing away from the products one bit. According to exclusive survey figures compiled by...

Predictive Analytics Gaining Credence with Servicers.(surveys)
April 1, 2006... Phoenix -- Similar to credit card and auto lending operations, mortgage lenders are now incorporating predictive analytics to better manage risk, said James Caldwell, a partner with Deloitte & Touche, at the MBA's National Mortgage Servicing...

Trustees Schedule Conference To Address Default Servicing.(conferences)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Irvine, CA -- The United Trustees Association will hold their 31st annual Fall Education Conference and Trade Show at the brand-new Red Rock Resort, Casino & Spa in Las Vegas Nov. 13-14. The conference addresses many issues and practices...

New Accounting Choice Could Vex Servicers.(mortgage services)
April 1, 2006... There is good news for the mortgage industry. The Financial Accounting Standards Board - source of many industry headaches over the years - has acquiesced to industry requests that fair market accounting be allowed for mortgage servicing...

Counselors Fear 'Credit Addiction'.(mortgages)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Silver Spring, MD -- The National Foundation for Credit Counseling says "there is no Happy New Year" for many people as consumer debt continued to grow another $4 billion in January to a staggering $2.16 trillion, according to numbers released...

Orion Rolls Out Onsite Servicing.(technology used)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Southlake, TX -- Orion Financial Group said that Mission Capital Advisors has started using Orion's electronic onsite servicing offering. Orion's EOS streamlines lien assignment and release processes, company president Mike Wileman said....

U.S. Bank Gets Master Ratings.
April 1, 2006... New York -- Standard & Poor's and Moody's have provided master servicer ratings to U.S. Bank Corporate Trust Services, the company said. Those ratings allow U.S. Bank Corporate Trust Services to offer master servicing on mortgage-backed...

OTS Looks Askance at Rising Neg-Am Loan Market.(Office of Thrift Supervision )
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Adjustable-rate mortgage products with negative amortization features are appropriate for some borrowers but not for subprime borrowers, according to the top federal thrift regulator. Office of Thrift Supervision director John...

Banks Will Report New Mortgage Data.
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Federal regulators will be collecting more information about the mortgage banking activities of commercial banks, including single-family originations and earnings, under new revisions to the bank call reports. Commercial...

Wachovia Takes Top Spot in CRE Servicing.
April 1, 2006... The list of the top commercial mortgage servicers at the end of 2005 show the same companies heading up the list, but the rankings from the Mortgage Bankers Association show that GMACCH has been edged out by Wachovia for the No. 1 spot. ...

Analyst Wary of GGP Debt.(General Growth Properties Inc.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... New York -- General Growth Properties has been a high-flying real estate investment trust in recent years, with the stock price more than doubling since early 2003. But analysts at CreditSights see some potential storm clouds on the...

MIT to Track Real Estate.(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Cambridge, MA -- The MIT Center for Real Estate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has released a commercial real estate index that tracks the investment performance of commercial properties. According to this index, commercial real...

Banks Can Earn CRA Credit in Gulf Coast Recovery Plan.(community reinvestment act)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Banks and thrifts assisting with the recovery and rebuilding of the disaster areas hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are eligible for Community Reinvestment Act credit for at least three years, according to federal regulators....

URS to Support Federal Sales.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO -- URS Corp. here said that its EG&G division has been awarded a contract with the General Services Administration to support federal asset sales. The five-year contract has a maximum value of $25 million to URS, the company said....

Flat Curve Deters Banks from Making Mortgage Investments.
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Commercial banks and thrifts abruptly stopped adding single-family loans and mortgage-backed securities to their portfolios in the fourth quarter in response to rising short-term interest rates and a flattening yield curve. ...

Analysts Expect Rate Challenges.(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... New York -- Concern about rising mortgage rates, in0flationary pressure and home price appreciation have led analysts at CreditSights to assign an "underweight" recommendation to the homebuilding sector's bonds. "At the end of the day, a...

High Cost Fuels Demand for Interest-Only Products.
April 1, 2006... With recent economic news showing that the U.S. economy is in a steady growth phase, and the Federal Reserve signaling that higher interest rates are a possibility, more consumers are going to look to interest-only mortgages to sustain housing...

Inverted Curve Throws Kink Into MBS Values.(mortgage-backed securities )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... New York -- One thing about the mortgage-backed securities market that an investor can always count on is that valuing an instrument with so many moving parts isn't easy. But generally most techniques to value MBS point in the same direction,...

Flagstar Bank Recognized by Freddie Mac.
April 1, 2006... Detroit -- Flagstar Bancorp Inc. was named among 84 Freddie Mac servicing companies recognized with its 2005 tier-one performance ranking. The ranking is given when a high level of customer service in investor reporting and default management...

Cost Cutting Spreads Across the Mortgage Sector.
April 1, 2006... Washington -- Slapped sober by weaker profit margins and declining originations, mortgage bankers of all stripes are engaging in a mini-tsunami of cost cuts the likes that haven't been seen since the doldrums of 2000. Last month,...

Analyst: TCF's Risk Profile Up.(TCF Financial Corp.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... New York -- TCF Financial, a Minnesota-based savings institution, has a "higher risk loan portfolio" than some of its peers, according to analysts at CreditSights. Specifically, TCF's exposure to fixed-rate home-equity loans that have...

Document Imaging.(mortgage services moving to e-commerce)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... There's a lot of talk about a future in which "paperless mortgage" will not be a contradiction in terms. But today, a typical mortgage loan file can still contain as many as 250 pages of paper. When people crate around boxes of mortgage files,...

Datacap Sees Growing Need for Data Capture, Index Tools.(document management by mortgage services)
April 1, 2006... Tarrytown, NY -- Scott Blau, CEO of Datacap Inc. here, says the market for imaging of mortgage documents will grow even stronger as lenders adapt standards for the creating and management of electronic documents and data. "A lot of people...

Global Equity Uses Guardian.(Global Equity Lending deploying Guardian Mortgage Services )(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Lakewood, CO -- Guardian Mortgage Services here is managing 100% of Global Equity Lending's document preparation, closing coordination and post-closing. GMS is a division of Guardian Mortgage Documents that provides customized outsource...

Imaging Reduces Post-Closing Burden.(OnBase technology for imaging)(mortgage services)
April 1, 2006... Westlake, OH -- There has been a lot of talk about imaging as a tool to going paperless, but beyond just getting rid of the paper there are other uses for this technology that can equal big return on investment for the user. "We're using...

Fidelity Working on New Version of NewImage.(Fidelity National Financial Inc.'s document imaging and management)
April 1, 2006... Jacksonville, FL -- Fidelity National Foreclosure and Bankruptcy Solutions is working on a complete overhaul of its technology for document imaging and management for delivery over the Internet. And Dennis Stemmle, senior vice president of...

Standardized Electronic Delivery to Investors is a Must.
April 1, 2006... Phoenix, AZ -- Investors like Freddie Mac and Flagstar have delivered their e-mortgage specifications in recent months. Fannie Mae and Countrywide have had specs for some time. Lenders wanted more e-delivery choices when selling loans on the...

Servicing People.(IndyMac Bank promoted Ted Tekippe)(eAppraiseIT appointed DeAnna McCann)(First American Corp. appointed Frank V. McMahon)
April 1, 2006... CALIFORNIA Brea-ResMAE Mortgage Corp. has appointed Jeffrey Thompson as regional vice president for the company's Northeast territory. Mr. Thompson will be responsible for the continuing development of an outside sales team, in...

Former CFC VPs Charged by SEC.(Countrywide Financial Corp.'s former employees Alan Cao and Jun Shi)(Securities and Exchange Commission)(Brief article)
April 1, 2006... Washington -- The Securities and Exchange Commissioned has charged two former Countrywide Financial Corp. executives with insider trading in a case that sprang from short trading of the company's stock just prior to the public release of...