Mortgage Servicing News articles from February 2003

Mortgage Servicing News archives from February 2003

Mortgage Debt to Keep Growing, Fueling More Servicing Volume.
February 1, 2003... During the past 18 months, residential servicers have been slammed by runoff - thanks to the refinancing boom - but it appears the industry is finally in for some good news. According to economists at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, mortgage...

Falling Delinquencies Suggest Worst Is Over.(mortgage payments)
February 1, 2003... The number of homeowners who are behind on mortgage payments declined in every major category during the third quarter of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America. While serious delinquencies remain stubbornly...

Alltel Hurt by WaMu Plans?(Washington Mutual Bank to buy HomeSide Lending Inc.)(ALLTEL Corp. service contract)
February 1, 2003... Ever since Washington Mutual here announced that it would buy HomeSide Lending and its $150 billion servicing portfolio, Alltel has known that one of its best servicing customers might disappear. As one WaMu insider put it, "We bought them...

Scratch & Dent Market Growing.(mortgage loans)
February 1, 2003... An investor base for "scratch and dent" mortgage loans is growing, which may be good news for servicers and investors in re-performing and subperforming mortgage loans. But it also has required rating agencies to develop new methodologies...

Top 10 Residential Servicers 2000-2002 Market Share leaders.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... (part 1 of 2) Mortgage Co. Serv. Market Market Sh. Name at 9-30-02 Yr End 01 1 Washington Mutual 12.18% 8.87% 2 Wells Fargo 9.09% 8.71% ...

Subprime Delinquency Rates at 9/30/02.
February 1, 2003... (based on the number of loans serviced) (part 1 of 2) Total Rank Organization Name Past Due 1 Washington Mutual ...

Refis Continue to Surge Early in the New Year.(mortgage refinancing)
February 1, 2003... At the beginning of 2002, the conventional wisdom was that rates would gradually rise and refinance volume would taper off as the year progressed. At the start of 2003, the forecast is much the same - but this time economists are hedging...

Dan Scheuble.(named chief information officer at GMAC Residential Funding Corp.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... GMAC Residential has named Mr. Scheuble chief information officer. A veteran with 20 years of experience, Mr. Scheuble will manage all GMAC Residential business relationships and all Information Technology application development projects...

HUD to Expand 'Credit Watch'.(Department of Housing and Urban Development)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... The Department of Housing and Urban Development wants to expand its Credit Watch program for automatically terminating bad lenders to include wholesalers who are involved in making Federal Housing Administration-insured loans. Under the...

S&P Expects to See Rise in Commercial Delinquencies This Year.(Standard & Poor's Corp.)
February 1, 2003... A rise in commercial mortgage-backed securities delinquencies is anticipated by Standard & Poor's. Although commercial mortgage-backed securities have performed well creditwise in the last decade, their performance is tied to the state of...

LOGS Revamps Brand Identity.(LOGS Financial Services Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... LOGS Financial Services here, a provider of default management services, announced that it is launching a new corporate brand that includes a refreshed visual identity and mission. The new LOGS brand is defined in a tagline as "Build...

Predatory Servicing.(mortgages)
February 1, 2003... For lenders that choose to manage portfolios of subprime credit quality loans, the rewards can be great. Servicing fees are higher. Many servicers have shied away from the subprime market, opening up opportunities for specialists to gain a...

Court Nixes Cram Downs But Exceptions Remain.(mortgages in bankruptcies)
February 1, 2003... Attorneys Ben-Ezra and Perlin take lenders on a tour of the Supreme Court's decisions that protect lenders from a "cram down" of mortgages in bankruptcy proceedings - and look at some of the exceptions that might allow a homeowner to obtain a...

Why the Top Five Won't Be Buying Anytime Soon.(mortgage banks)
February 1, 2003... In case you haven't noticed, the top five residential servicers in the U.S. have a combined market share of 43%. The top 10, as a group, have a 53.33% market share. Translated into English, that means the top five service a huge chunk of the...

Refinancing Remains Vigorous Even in Holiday Season.
February 1, 2003... Prepayment rates rose 5%-7% in December for Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities and were mixed for Freddie Mac MBS, contrary to some analysts' expectations. Speeds of 30-year Fannie Mae 6.0%, 6.5% and 7.0% coupons in the 2001 vintage...

Altegra Takes National City Name.(Altegra Credit Co. changes name to National City Home Loan Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Altegra Credit Co. has changed its name to National City Home Loan Services. Phil Cunningham, executive vice president and general manager of the company, said the change reflects Altegra's transformation from a consumer finance company...

Citi Gets Servicing Upgrade Following Golden State Deal.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Fitch Ratings has upgraded the residential primary servicer rating for CitiMortgage to 'RPS1' from 'RPS1-minus,' the rating agency announced. The new rating is Fitch's highest for a servicer. Fitch said the upgrade is based on...

Terror Insurance Act May Leave Servicers in the Dark.
February 1, 2003... Servicers who have spent a lot of time in the post-9/11 environment battling with additional administrative tasks relating to terrorism insurance might be expecting that the recently enacted Terrorism Risk Insurance Program will ensure that...

Fitch: Office, Apartment Markets Likely to Remain Soft This Year.(Fitch Ratings)
February 1, 2003... Fitch Ratings expects to see continued weakness in the office and apartment sectors for the next year. Based on a study of the interaction, over a 10-year period, between property types and markets, the rating agency has assigned scores to...

Criimi Mae Gets Infusion of Cash.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Criimi Mae has obtained a firm financing commitment from Brascan Real Estate Financial and Bear Stearns and is moving ahead with the restructuring process that was begun earlier this year. Under the terms of Criimi's agreement with the...

Partnerships Help Borrowers Cope with Hard Times.
February 1, 2003... With current hard economic times and Americans continuing to pile on debt, many in the mortgage industry are starting to take stronger pre-emptive measures against possible defaults on their loans by reaching borrowers as early as possible in...

Risk Goes Up On B&C Loans.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... The default risk on newly originated nonprime mortgage loans "remains at elevated levels," according to a quarterly report from University Financial Associates. And the risk has risen by over 30% since 1998 as a result of a slowing...

Feds Consider Adding Default Docs to Electronic Signature Act.
February 1, 2003... Now under evaluation by the federal government is the question of whether notices of housing foreclosures, repossessions and defaults should be given legal standing if sent out in electronic form. The Electronic Signature in Global and...

Consumers Pay Late Despite Credit Woes.
February 1, 2003... While nearly all Americans recognize that paying bills late can affect their personal credit rating, some 25% admit that they still pay at least one bill late each month, according to a study conducted by Western Union. Mortgage servicers...

Reserves Will Offset Hedge Losses When Rates Rise.
February 1, 2003... In what seems like an eternal refinancing wave, it may be premature to worry about what happens when interest rates start to rise. After all, in the first week of this year, the average rate on fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage loans fell to 5.85%,...

E-mail Can Be Powerful Customer Relationship Tool.
February 1, 2003... Even as mortgage lenders spend millions on complicated loan origination and servicing technology to make their operations run better, cheaper and faster, the killer application may already be in their arsenals: e-mail. According to a...

AFSA Plans to Create Standards For Electronic Consumer Contracts.(American Financial Services Association)
February 1, 2003... American Financial Services Association, a trade group for many of the nation's largest consumer credit companies, has announced plans to develop voluntary standards for the transmission, storage, service and certification of electronic...

Open Solutions Adds Collections Support.(Open Solutions Inc. new asset collection software)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Open Solutions Inc., a provider of integrated technologies for community financial institutions, has created an asset collection management system for processing and recovering nonperforming loans. The software also can be used to manage...

'Prepayment Score' Joins Credit Score as New Tool.
February 1, 2003... Lenders have long relied upon credit scores to assess the default risk of individual borrowers, and now one expert in prepayment modeling has created a score to assess a borrower's propensity to prepay. Michael Bykhovsky, head of Applied...

Alltel Sub Launches Mortgage Consulting.(BenchMark Consulting International)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... BenchMark Consulting International, a subsidiary of Alltel, has started a mortgage consulting business that will capitalize on Alltel's mortgage servicing automation platform. BenchMark said its consulting practice will offer solutions in...

INFO1 Partners with Transamerica.(to sell flood determination services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... INFO1 Holding Company, a national provider of credit information for the mortgage industry, has formed a strategic alliance with Transamerica Flood Hazard Certification, one of the nation's largest flood zone determination companies. Under...

Roundup: CASA Finds Use in First Mortgage Arena.(Principal Residential Mortgage Inc. gets contract)
February 1, 2003... Principal Residential Mortgage Inc., Des Moines, ranked 12th among national lenders by volume according to MSN affiliate, the Quarterly Data Report, has selected Case Shiller Weiss to implement a customized collateral risk assessment system....

Special Report: Sub Servicing.
February 1, 2003... A lot has changed in the business of servicing mortgage loans for other parties. In recent years, new players have moved in. Old players have moved on. And some of the stalwarts, like Dovenmuehle Mortgage, just keep quietly adding to their...

What a Difference Five Years Makes.(large lenders in industry)
February 1, 2003... You don't have to look at the list of the largest subservicers for long to see how much the industry has changed in recent years. Some traditional big players in the industry, such as subservicing specialists Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Cenlar...

Top Subservicers at 9/30/02.
February 1, 2003... (Dollars in Millions) Subservicing Volume Rank Organization Name Location 9/30/02 9/30/01 1 Washington Mutual (1) Seattle, WA $144,392 na ...

Top subprime Subservicers at 9/30/02.
February 1, 2003... (Dollars in Millions) Subservicing Volume Rank Organization Name Location 9/30/02 9/30/01 1 Fairbanks Capital Corp. (E) Salt Lake City, UT $34,085...

Cendant Wins Contract with Fleet.(Fleet National Bank, Boston)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Cendant Mortgage here, one of the biggest players in private label funding, has snagged Fleet National Bank, Boston, as a client. Fleet chose Cendant to provide mortgage services to its customers over Washington Mutual, Seattle, which had...

Fitch Upgrades Cendant's Ratings.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... Fitch Ratings has upgraded Cendant Mortgage's ratings as a residential servicer for prime loans and has given the company a home equity servicer rating as well. Fitch now rates Cendant as a 'RPS1-' servicer of residential prime mortgage...

Midland Says New Platform Tested.(Midland Loan Servicing)
February 1, 2003... Midland Loan Servicing says it has completed the testing of its Enterprise loan servicing platform and will begin marketing it in earnest to other commercial mortgage loan servicers next year. Stacy Berger, Midland's senior vice president,...

Lehman Expands B&C Presence.(Aurora Loan Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... The Lehman Brothers-owned Aurora Loan Services is doing a swift little business in 'Alt-A' lending and in now looking to expand its presence in subprime. According to one Aurora official, the non-depository wants to "build a large...

Servicing People.
February 1, 2003... CALIFORNIA Calabasas Hills-ARCS Commercial Mortgage announced the appointment of Jonathan M. Leeb to the post of senior vice president for ARCS' newly created Capital Markets Group. In his new position, Mr. Leeb will be responsible for...