Mortgage Servicing News articles from April 2008

Mortgage Servicing News archives from April 2008

No Foreclosure Relief in Sight.
April 1, 2008... Washington -- Few experts were expecting much relief from the rising tide of loan defaults in the fourth quarter of last year, but some were surprised by the extent of the continued credit deterioration. When the foreclosure inventory is...

State with the Highest Delinquency Rates.(Brief article)(Statistical data)
April 1, 2008... Foreclosure Foreclosure State Total Past Due 30-day 60-day 90-day Inventory Starts Mississippi 11.07% 5.91% 2.02% 3.14% 2.14% 1.09% Michigan 8.97% 4.62% 1.81% 2.55% 3.38% 1.29% Georgia 8.37% 4.57% 1.66%...

Md. Governor Aims To Oversee Servicers.(Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley)
April 1, 2008... Annapolis, MD -- In response to the impact of the subprime lending crisis on homeowners, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is working on two new initiatives putting servicers on notice that their response to the crisis will be carefully...

Top Residential Servicers at December 31, 2007.
April 1, 2008... (dollars in millions) Servicing Volume % Market Mkt Shr Rank Organization Name Location 12/31/07 12/31/06 Change Share % pt. +/- 1 Countrywide Financial Corp. Calabasas, CA $1,476,203 $1,298,394 14% 16.04% +0.92%...

VA Embraces Electronic Reports.
April 1, 2008... Washington -- In cooperation with Fidelity National Information Services Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., the Department of Veteran Affairs launched the VA Loan Electronic Reporting Interface, an online tool created to instantly connect lenders,...

Fannie Offers Personal Loan Aid.
April 1, 2008... Washington-Fannie Mae is giving servicers a new tool called HomeSaver Advance to help delinquent borrowers who are getting back on their feet but don't have the resources to cover missed payments. Starting in April, Fannie servicers can...

Survey Finds 28% Are Making Payments Online.
April 1, 2008... New Orleans -- Amplified Web interaction with customers due to a tighter mortgage market and the need to reduce operating costs is helping servicers optimize service quality, increase customer satisfaction and retention levels within their...

Countrywide Faces $1.2B of Negative Amortization.
April 1, 2008... Calabasas, CA -- Countrywide Financial Corp., one of the largest funders of payment-option ARMs in the nation, is owed at least $1.2 billion from borrowers who have chosen to forestall interest payments. Roughly 5.36% of CFC's POA portfolio...

Freddie Prices Risk into G-Fee.(government sponsored enterprises)(Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Washington -- Freddie Mac seller/servicers delivering high-risk mortgages to the GSE could wind up paying guarantee and delivery fees of close to 78 basis points per loan under new requirements that go into effect in three months. Up until...

Editorial: Counseling Comes of Age.(Editorial)
April 1, 2008... Credit counseling used to be primarily a concern for loan originators. Counseling programs focused on making sure that first-timers were prepared for the financial responsibilities of homeownership. Now, counseling is coming of age on the...

Point of View: Regulators Need More Loan Servicing Data.
April 1, 2008... Mr. Dugan, comptroller of the currency, heads a regulatory agency that oversees large national banks. This viewpoint is Mr. Dugan's Feb. 29 letter to nine large national banks that account for the vast majority of national bank mortgage...

Maryland Investigating Ocwen's Servicing Business.(Ocwen Loan Servicing)(Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation )
April 1, 2008... The Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation is examining the collection practices of Ocwen Loan Servicing, West Palm Beach, Fla., one of the largest subprime players in the U.S. A spokeswoman for the MDLLR told Mortgage...

Mortgage Woes Strip Thrift's of Stock Value.(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Arlington, VA -- With banking companies having a high concentration of housing-related assets trading at a steep discount these days, that doesn't necessarily mean it's time to jump in and buy up their stocks, according to Friedman Billings...

January Rate Drop Yields Modest Increase in Speeds.
April 1, 2008... Prepayment rates for 30-year mortgage loans in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities rose "modestly" in January, according to the Bear Stearns Prepayment Commentary. The aggregate speed of 30-year Fannie Maes stood at a...

Astoria Takes Hit On GSE Preferreds.
April 1, 2008... Lake Success, NY -- Astoria Financial Corp. here saw its net income decline from $37.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2006 to $19.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. However, the company said its operating income was down only...

Retention Emphasis May Spur Refis.
April 1, 2008... In the last quarter of 2007, mortgage servicers dodged a bullet. Despite lower interest rates, prepayment speeds largely lagged analytical models used to project speeds. Most analysts believe that declining home values and tighter underwriting...

MSP Processes39 Million Loans.(Mortgage Servicing Package )(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Jacksonville, FL -- Fidelity National Information Services said it completed a successful year-end processing of loans serviced using its Mortgage Servicing Package on the first day of the year, saying that all daily, month-end and quarter-end...

Experts Turning Pessimistic about CRE Property.
April 1, 2008... Are commercial real estate prices on the way down, adding additional surveillance effort for servicers? Certainly, they are not going up as fast as they were during the peak of the cycle in the last couple of years, when, for instance, Sam Zell...

Apartment Financing Conditions Are Mixed.
April 1, 2008... Washington -- The downturn in the housing market and tighter availability of credit are having a positive impact on multifamily rentals, according to the National Multi Housing Council's first-quarter survey of executives. However,...

States in the Midwest Face Unprecedented Foreclosures.
April 1, 2008... January's foreclosure numbers demonstrate that foreclosure activity is continuing on its upward trend, substantially increasing from a year ago in many states. According to the latest data from RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings, including...

Toll May Hit $341 Billion.
April 1, 2008... New York -- JPMorgan Chase, in a new report, estimates that depositories and investment bankers could be on the hook for $341 billion in mortgage-related writedowns - both residential and commercial - in the years ahead. The report, which...

MBA Forecasts 1.8M Foreclosures in 2008.
April 1, 2008... New Orleans -- The mortgage industry is facing the prospect of 1.8 million foreclosures this year, up from 1.5 million in 2007, according to a prediction by the Mortgage Bankers Association's chief economist. That means a higher transition rate...

Outsourced Analytics Helps Lenders Survive.
April 1, 2008... New York -- High default and foreclosure rates are raising demand for more accurate loan data analyses that allow lenders to screen out lower-risk customers as they preserve and even increase loan volume and mitigate loss. Adventity Inc....

Countrywide's Default Rate Doubled in January.
April 1, 2008... Calabasas, CA -- Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest residential servicer with a market share of almost 17%, said its foreclosure rate almost doubled in January from the same month a year ago, according to newly released figures....

Housing Costs Threaten Middle-Class Security.
April 1, 2008... New York -- The economic security of America's African-American and Latino middle class is endangered by insufficient assets and high housing costs that put America's households of color at risk of impoverishment, according to a new study by...

Rating Agencies Pressure Insurers with Downgrades.
April 1, 2008... New York -- A pair of rating agencies have taken a critical eye towards the companies that make up the private mortgage insurance business. The report from Fitch Ratings placed its hardest hits on the four standalone mortgage insurers. It...

Borrower: Friend Servicers Save Thousands.
April 1, 2008... Success in today's default market requires flexible, friendly strategies. The days of the foreboding stranger, cloaked in a black hat and cape, lurking around the corner to steal a borrower's home and flee with gobs of money, have fallen...

Analyst: Another $200 Billion of B&C Losses Possible.
April 1, 2008... New Orleans -- An estimated 40% of outstanding subprime mortgage loans could go into default over the next three years based on current economic assumptions, according to Michael Bykhovsky, president of Applied Analytics, San Francisco. ...

FIS Desktop '08 Gets Underway.(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... New Orleans -- Fidelity National Information Services has released FIS Desktop 2008, an improved imaging, retrieval, expense and communication management system that provides real-time connectivity to mortgage banking and financial industry...

Clayton Emphasizes Surveillance as Issuance Withers.(sales and earnings of Clayton Holdings Inc.)(Financial report)
April 1, 2008... Shelton, CT -- Clayton Holdings, a provider of analytics, consulting and outsourced services here, reported a loss of $91.7 million in the fourth quarter, reflecting a loss of $92.8 million related to impairment of goodwill and other assets in...

WaMu Gets Downgraded.
April 1, 2008... New York -- Citing a worse mortgage market than expected even two months ago, Standard & Poor's has lowered the long-term counterparty credit ratings of Washington Mutual Inc., Seattle, and Washington Mutual Bank. WaMu is the nation's...

Counseling Helps Cash Flow.
April 1, 2008... New York -- As more and more lenders begin working with credit counseling agencies to improve contact rates with delinquent borrowers, they are finding that counselors provide more than just a way to get borrowers talking about solutions to...

SIRs Offers Field Services Certification.(Society of Independent Representatives)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... New York -- An organization that represents companies in the field services industry has teamed up with a consulting company to offer Web-based testing and certification exams for property inspection and property preservation providers. ...

LSSI Is Getting Traction with 3D.
April 1, 2008... Poway, CA -- Technology providers, like the lenders they serve, face a challenging market as the mortgage industry struggles to right itself. But some technology providers find that servicing applications are finding success even as loan...

CB&T Automates to Expand Beyond Loan Servicing.
April 1, 2008... Louisville, KY -- In moving from a servicing outfit to an origination and servicing shop, Commonwealth Bank & Trust Co. here realized that it had to turn to technology to assist this transition. The company's first effort was to automate...

Purchasing Nonperforming Loans.
April 1, 2008... These days, most people in the mortgage industry are more interested in selling nonperforming and subperforming assets than in buying them. Yet an industrywide fire sale may be setting the stage for a comeback in the subprime mortgage arena....

First American Helps Lenders Value Second Liens.(First American Asset Management Inc.)
April 1, 2008... Westlake, TX -- First American Subordinate Lien Outsourcing here, a unit of the First American Corp., has created a new scoring model to measure the risk/reward potential for second-lien loans. The company believes the second-lien scoring...

Mission Capital Selling NPA Pool.(nonperforming mortgages )(Mission Capital Advisors )(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... New York -- Mission Capital Advisors here is taking bids on a $131.2 million portfolio of nonperforming mortgages secured by commercial and residential properties in western Florida. The seller is described by Mission as an "unnamed...

'Deleveraging' Likely To Spur Buying Activity.
April 1, 2008... Arlington, VA -- As banks and other mortgage investors struggle to "deleverage" their balance sheets, it's little wonder why private equity and hedge funds smell blood in the water. Many expect a fire sale of subprime mortgage assets. And...

Oxford's Hedge Fund To Buy at a Discount.
April 1, 2008... Houston -- Oxford Funding Corp. has formed a hedge fund to invest in discounted portfolios of residential and commercial mortgages. "The fund gives Oxford Funding another vehicle and another opportunity to profit from disruption in the...

REDC Sees Record Sales In Southern CA Auction.
April 1, 2008... Irvine, CA -- Real Estate Disposition Corp. sold over $217 million in what the company calls a historic five-day Southern California foreclosed home auction event. The company said nearly 100,000 visited the four open houses, yielding...

Citi Is Planning to Sell $45B of Mortgage Assets.
April 1, 2008... New York -- Citigroup late last month disclosed plans to reduce its on-balance-sheet mortgage holdings by $45 billion over the next year or 20% of its total portfolio. Officials in Citi's mortgage division told Mortgage Servicing News that...

Fitch Downgrades 400 More B&C Classes.(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... New York -- Nearly 400 additional classes of first-lien subprime mortgage pass-through certificates were downgraded by Fitch Ratings from Feb. 15 to Feb. 21 as a result of changes to its subprime loss forecasting assumptions. Fitch also...

WKFS Steps Up Loan Mod Work.
April 1, 2008... Minneapolis -- Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, a provider of compliance and workflow tools, is expanding its services to support loan modification and workouts for the mortgage industry. In January, the company started working with...

Servicing People.(Walnut CreekThe PMI Group Inc. promotes Arthur P. Slepian to executive vice president)
April 1, 2008... Walnut CreekThe PMI Group Inc. promoted Arthur P. Slepian to executive vice president, chief enterprise risk officer. Mr. Slepian will be responsible for enterprise risk management for the PMI Group, including U.S. mortgage insurance...

Big Servicers Declare 30-Day Foreclosure Halt.
April 1, 2008... Washington -- Under the auspices of the Bush administration, six of the nation's largest residential servicers controlling almost 60% of the market in February unveiled a new program to freeze for 30 days all foreclosures - prime and subprime...

FHA Helps B&C Refinancing.
April 1, 2008... Washington -- Now that the FHA Secure program has fallen short in helping slightly delinquent subprime borrowers, proposals are being floated to expand the Federal Housing Administration program to refinance a growing number of seriously...