Mortgage Servicing News articles from August 2001

Mortgage Servicing News archives from August 2001

HomeSide Takes a Hit.(National Australia Bank)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Remarkably, few big lenders reported taking big hits from servicing write downs in the early part of this year's refinancing boom. That puts all the more attention on National Australia Bank's announcement that it is taking a $450 million...

'Cash Out' Is Driving This Refinancing Boom.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... With rates edging upward, refinancing activity has slackened, but debt consolidation may give this refinancing boom some extra momentum. Significant gains in home price appreciation have given many homeowners an opportunity to consolidate...

Big Lenders Replenish No More Than 33%.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Mortgage executives often like to say the best "true" hedge against servicing run-off is production. But an analysis of the nation's largest servicers reveals that none of the top-five servicers have replenishment ratios north of 33%. ...

MBA Highlights 'Best Practices'.(Mortgage Bankers Association of America)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Two new guidelines for the commercial servicing industry were released by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBA) at the MBA's seventh annual commercial and multifamily mortgage administration conference held here. Mark Hill,...

WaMu Chief: $500B or Bust.(Washington Mutual Bank)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Washington Mutual chairman, president and chief executive Kerry Killinger said that in the near future the top tier players in the mortgage industry must have at least mortgage origination operations of $100 billion and servicing platforms of...

Replenishment ratio of top sericers.(Illustration)
August 1, 2001... (Dollars in Millions) (part 1 of 2) Rank Organization Name Location 1 No. Am. Mtg/Dime (1) Tampa, FL 2 National City Mtg Miamisburg, OH 3 ABN AMRO Mtg Troy, MI 4 SunTrust Mtg Richmond, VA 5 1st...

Loan Performance Holds Steady Even As Economy Cools Down.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 1, 2001... Even though the home loan delinquency rate declined in the first quarter, the underlying trend may still portend more problem loans, according to the chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America. The delinquency rate on...

Snapshot.(Illustration)
August 1, 2001... Geographic Breakdown: Overall Home Loan Delinquency Rate by Census Region West: 3.28% North Central: 3.96% Northeast: 4.21% South: 5.56% Note: loans more...

Seasoning Blamed For Record HEL Delinquency Rate.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Serious delinquencies in securitized pools of home equity loans rose to their highest level ever in the fourth quarter of last year, providing further evidence that loan problems are mounting. Serious delinquencies in home equity pools...

Champion's Expansion Creates Need For New Servicing Center.(Champion Mortgage Co.)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Champion Mortgage Co., a home equity lender, has spun off its loan servicing division and other back-office functions into a new division called Key Consumer Real Estate Services. Champion is a subsidiary of KeyCorp Finance Inc. and the new...

Countrywide Hits $300 Billion Mark.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Countrywide Credit Industries, the largest mortgage company that is not a subsidiary of a bank, has become the fifth lender to accumulate a servicing portfolio in excess of $300 billion. Countrywide announced last month that it services...

Disclosure Time.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... The editor of this newspaper has something to disclose to those of you who work at financial institutions. Some of you may be among his two mortgage lenders. Others might have provided credit life insurance or mortgage insurance to him. And...

FEMA Needs Better Flood Insurance Data.
August 1, 2001... This viewpoint is an excerpt from the report of JayEtta Hecker, director for physical infrastructure issues at the General Accounting Office, about the GAO's review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Flood Insurance Program....

Mortgage Scene: What Comes After the Refi Boom? Time to Start Asking.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... The mortgage industry is one of few businesses I know that does well when the overall economy slows. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that when the gross domestic product (GDP) hits the fan, the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates...

Speed Watch: Freddie Mac's New Schedule Will Benefit Servicers.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Servicers and Freddie Mac will be the biggest winners as a result of Freddie Mac's prepayment accounting cycle change that took effect July 1, according to Bear Stearns. As reported in the last issue of MSN, the change will bring the...

HUD Gives HECM Lenders a Break On Assignments.(home equity conversion mortgages)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... The Department of Housing and Urban Development has fixed the way it takes assignments of reverse mortgages so that servicers make a clean handoff of a loan without incurring incremental losses to the investor. HUD also informed servicers...

Hedging: Home Price Trends Factor Into New Prepayment Modeling.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... We all know that interest rates are the primary driver of refinancing activity. When rates fall, loans first become "cuspy." When rates fall again, chances are they are no longer on the cusp of refinancing, they are "in the money," meaning...

Commercial Servicer: Reports Say Hotel and Healthcare Properties May Remain Strong.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Two recent research reports strike positive notes on the healthcare and hotel sector respectively - two property types that are high on the list of servicer concerns at the moment. The healthcare-related report from the National Investment...

Default Time Special Report.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Not all is well in the mortgage industry right now. Delinquencies have been rising, as more and more borrowers find themselves tangled up in an economic slowdown. Economists are divided about whether things are getting worse or better. Some...

Strand Research Sells Exclusive Rights to Collateral Risk Modeling Tool.
August 1, 2001... Strand Research here is auctioning an exclusive license for its residential real estate index, a model that can be used to identify foreclosure risk one to five years in the future. Bidders were asked to submit bids to the New York law...

Web-Centric Approach Eases Attorney Communication.(Fiserv Inc.)
August 1, 2001... In recent years, the industry has seen many efforts to facilitate electronic commerce between mortgage lenders and attorneys through proprietary networks. But Fiserv, makers of the MortgageServ system for automation of loan...

Meritech To Use LenStar Service.(XML Web-services)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Meritech Mortgage Services, a servicer of non-conforming residential loans, has chosen London Bridge's LenStar technology to manage communication with attorneys regarding defaulted loans. The system is being implemented in Meritech's home...

Credit Counselor: Pre-Purchase Counseling Helps Keep a Lid on Foreclosure Problems.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... It has been a long held belief within the mortgage industry that prepurchase homeownership counseling is an effective tool in lowering delinquency rates. Freddie Mac recently completed a study affirming that belief. It found that...

Accounting Proposal for Troubled CMBS Loans Falls Short.(Financial Accounting Standards Board)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has accepted one industry proposal that will make it easier for special servicers in the CMBS sector to deal with defaulted loans without losing their Qualified Special Purpose Entity (QSPE)...

Criimi Mae Reclaims Servicer Status.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Rating agency Standard & Poor's has reinstated Rockville, Md.-based Criimi Mae on its Select Servicer list for commercial mortgage loans. S&P added Criimi Mae Services to its Select List as a commercial loan servicer, master servicer and...

Second Japanese Lender Named Special Servicer.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Fitch has assigned its second special servicer rating in Japan to Tokyo Servicer Inc., a commercial mortgage servicer. The company received a CSS3 rating, indicating that Fitch considers it a three on a scale from one to five, in which one...

Experian Plans Launch of New 24-Hour Collections Scoring Tool.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Experian, a major provider of credit-related services, will launch "Q24 Collections," a credit scoring product designed to help creditors and collection firms reduce risk and increase profit potential from their debt portfolios. Mortgage...

Fannie Mae Not Worried About Credit Problems.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Fannie Mae's chief credit officer says that despite a cooling economy, the giant mortgage entity's credit costs will have no negative impact on the company's net income growth this year. Adolfo Marzol of Fannie Mae said the company's credit...

CBA Adds Fraud Identification Tool To Credit Reports.(CBA Information Services)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... CBA Information Services has added new fraud identification tools to its merged credit report product, the Pyramid Report. CBA said it was adding the tools in response to demand from customers for protection against fraudulent loans in...

'High Leverage' Loans Look Vulnerable in a Slowdown.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... With the economy continuing to soften, the mortgage industry may soon find out just what its highly leveraged mortgages are made of. Steven Hornburg, executive director of the Research Institute for Housing America, said, "We have had a...

Bottom Feeders Show Growing Interest in Non-Performing Loan Market.(Hanover Capital Mortgage Holdings Inc.)
August 1, 2001... While there are a lot of investors in the current market along the entire performance continuum of the single-family residential market, "there are a lot more people that are (now particularly) seeking out nonperforming and subperforming...

Northeast Dominates Appreciation Rates.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
August 1, 2001... Where have housing values appreciated most over the past two decades? California? Texas? Somewhere else in the Sun Belt? None of the above. According to the latest tally from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight...

SNAPSHOT.(Illustration)
August 1, 2001... FIVE BEST STATES FOR APPRECIATION 1980-2001 Massachusetts 364.1% New York 277.8 Rhode Island 213.8 New Jersey 208.6 New Hampshire 202.1 ...

As Delinquencies Creep Up, Default Specialists Get More Phone Calls.
August 1, 2001... A slowing economy may equal boom times for firms that specialize in default management services. Just ask Duke Olrich, president and CEO of DRI Management Systems. His firm has seen a dramatic increase in calls as mortgage delinquency...

Commercial Banks Speed Up Sale of Their Troubled Loan Portfolios.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... Hoping to avoid protracted credit problems, some commercial banks are selling distressed debt faster than they have in the past, according to ratings agency Standard & Poor's. "There's a new twist in the credit cycle, with banks...

SNAPSHOT.(Illustration)
August 1, 2001... Some Banks That Sold Bad Debt in the 1st Quarter Bank One $375 million First Union $90 million Bank of America $300 million FleetBank Boston $225 million Copyright c 2001...

Appraisal Group Gives Guidance about Privacy.(The Appraisal Institute)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... The Appraisal Institute, a trade group representing appraisers, has given its members guidance on how a banking reform law's privacy disclosure requirements affect the appraisal industry. "Although Congress did not explicitly make real...

WaMu Breaks Through the Half-Trillion Threshold.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... When Washington Mutual inked a deal to buy Dime Bancorp and its North American Mortgage subsidiary, WaMu did more than just add $56 billion of servicing to its mega-portfolio. It effectively broke the sound barrier of loan administration,...

Servicing People.(First American Title Insurance Co. has appointed Craig I. DeRoy)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... CALIFORNIA San Francisco- Mike Bixby has been re-elected as co-chair of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization's credit reporting workgroup, which is responsible for the recently published version 1.1 XML Standard Guide....

FirstMerit Writes Down MH Portfolio.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... FirstMerit will take an accounting charge of $9.7 million, or $6.3 million after taxes, related to its residual interest in manufactured housing loans that have been securitized. The charge, equal to about $0.07 per diluted share, will be...

MSN Clarification.(MSTD Inc.)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2001... BackInTheBlack, a loss-mitigation Web application, is the product of MSTD Inc., a Baltimore- headquartered provider of Web-based business solutions for the mortgage servicing and unsecured credit industries. Credit of ownership for...