Mortgage Servicing News articles from June 2003

Mortgage Servicing News archives from June 2003

Three Writedowns; Three Records.
June 1, 2003... For the nation's three largest mortgage servicers, the first quarter could have been a disaster. With interest rates falling to record lows once again, the big servicers inevitably had to take hits to the value of their mortgage servicing...

GMACCM Buys CapMark.
June 1, 2003... GMAC Commercial Mortgage here - which is on the auction block - has agreed to purchase one of its top competitors, CapMark Services, Atlanta. GMACCM is paying $106 million in a deal that includes not just CapMark, but affiliates involved...

Post GMACCM/CapMark Merger: How the Top Five CRE Servicers Will Look.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
June 1, 2003... (Dollars in Millions) Company Commercial Market Name Servicing Port. Share GMACCM/CapMark (1) $227,047 16.57 % Midland Loan Serv. (e) $74,000 5.43 % ...

MERS Tracks 15 MM Loans.
June 1, 2003... MERS, an electronic registry for tracking ownership of mortgage loans and servicing rights, has recorded its 15 millionth loan. The 15-million milestone represents a 77% increase in the number of loans registered on MERS from one year ago,...

Cross-Selling Called Industry Imperative.
June 1, 2003... Anchoring mortgage customers by cross-selling them an additional bank product is so important to the RBC Financial Group and its major Canadian bank, RBC Royal Bank, that it won't pay its commissioned loan originators until after the customer...

Share Growth Is Elusive.
June 1, 2003... It's a tale of two mortgage banking worlds these days: production rocks and servicing stinks. Thanks to the production boom of the past 24 months, lenders are making money hand-over-fist, but many top ranked servicers (which also tend to...

Top Servicing Gainers in 1Q 2003.(Illustration)
June 1, 2003... (Dollars in Millions) (part 1 of 2) Rank Organization Name Location 1 American Home Mortgage (1) Melville, NY 2 Netbank (1) Columbia, SC 3 ...

MSN/SPECIAL REPORT: Defaults & Loss Mitigation.
June 1, 2003... A weak economy means that lenders are seeing an increase in loss mitigation and default management work. And with the job picture remaining soft, more defaults could be coming your way. Page 19 Copyright 2003 Thomson Media Inc. All...

Chase Hopes Servicing Income Will Boost Profits When Rates Rise.
June 1, 2003... Chase Home Finance, Edison, N.J., has been building the servicing side of its business in preparation for a potential change from a downward interest rate cycle in which production fares well to an upward rate cycle in which servicing would...

Top Residential Servicers at March 31, 2003.(Illustration)
June 1, 2003... (Dollars in Millions) (part 1 of 2) Rk Organization Name, Location 1 Washington Mutual, Seattle, WA 2 Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, San Francisco, CA 3 Countrywide Financial Corp., Calabasas, CA 4 Chase...

New Legal Attacks Might Focus on Servicing Issues.
June 1, 2003... Although the mortgage business has won most of the courtroom battles to date, the plaintiffs' bar continues to fight the war, a litigation specialist said at a recent legal issue conference here. "One of the consequences of kicking butt on...

AFN Hires LeRoy As Top Executive.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The board of the American Foreclosure Network has hired William LeRoy, a 19-year veteran of the default loan servicing industry, as its executive director. Mr. LeRoy comes to the AFN from London Bridge Group, where he directed strategic...

The Best of Times.
June 1, 2003... Last month, we fretted in this space about the prospects of another year of refinancing activity. It's happening, of course, and the fact that most mortgage companies are making up for servicing losses on the origination side of the business...

Manage Your Portfolio Proactively with Credit Scores.
June 1, 2003... Mr. Maddox is vice president of national sales at TransUnion Settlement Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chicago-based TransUnion, which provides real estate information, settlement services and process management solutions to the...

Expect a Charter 'Move' By the GSEs in Near Future.
June 1, 2003... Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines knows he has a good thing going. So does his counterpart over at Freddie Mac, Leland Brendsel. Both men know the mortgage business like the backs of their hands and they know - probably better than anyone -...

Proposal Would Scale Back GSE Advantage.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The third consultative paper issued by the Basel Committee - like an earlier draft of the proposed international capital rules - appears to eliminate the more favorable regulatory risk weighting currently afforded to government-sponsored...

Prepay Speeds on Freddie Mac's MBS Exceed Those of Fannie Mae.
June 1, 2003... Prepayment rates for agency mortgage-backed securities rose substantially in April for new 30-year coupons in the 5.5%-6.5% range, and Freddie Mac speeds were consistently faster than those of Fannie Mae among such coupons. Among Fannie...

New Jersey Court Says Federal Thrift Regulator Cannot Pre-Empt Prepay Laws.
June 1, 2003... A New Jersey Appellate Court has ruled that the Office of Thrift Supervision does not have the right to pre-empt state laws forbidding prepayment penalties on residential mortgages. In the case in question, a borrower sued Equity One after...

Andrew Pollock.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Subprime mortgage giant First Franklin Financial Corp., San Jose has promoted Mr. Pollock to be its new president and chief executive officer. Mr. Pollock actually worked for First Franklin from 1986 to 1996 before leaving to join another...

DocuTech Prepared to Accommodate Electronic Loan Documents.
June 1, 2003... Idaho Falls, ID-DocuTech Corp. here reports that the total client volume in its mortgage document preparation and delivery business is up 200% for the first quarter. The company developed DT6, an original program that simplifies the process...

Interlinq Reaches One Million Loans.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Harland Financial Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of John H. Harland Co., announced that it recently surpassed the one-million loan milestone for total mortgage loans serviced on Interlinq Loan Servicing systems. "We grew our count by...

Roundup: LandAmerica Acquires California Bank for Escrow Deposits.
June 1, 2003... LandAmerica Financial Group Inc. here has agreed to purchase a California-based financial institution, Orange County Bancorp, and use the depository as a place to hold some of its escrows. Right now, the title company has relationships with...

Multifamily Plays Increasingly Prominent Role in Composition of CMBS.
June 1, 2003... Multifamily properties make up the third largest property type in commercial mortgage-backed securities deals by loan balance, according to a report from Moody's Investors Service. Multifamily loans constituted about 22% of the collateral...

Retail REIT's Earnings Improve.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Simon Property Group has reported net income of $55.1 million for the first quarter, an 84% rise from net income of $30 million for the corresponding period of 2002. The retail real estate investment trust, the largest REIT by market...

Commercial Overdues Are Up, But Not as Much as Expected.
June 1, 2003... War, what is it good for? Now that the war in Iraq has ended quickly, resulting in oil prices going down, fears about the possible impact of a long, drawn-out war on the economy have also been allayed. The Federal Open Market Committee has...

Freddie Mac Economist Sees Refinancing Near 60% Again This Year.(Frank Nothaft is chief economist)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Freddie Mac chief economist Frank Nothaft predicts a slight growth in the mortgage market for 2003, with originations of $2.54 trillion. This is slightly ahead of Freddie Mac's call for the origination market of $2.51 trillion for 2002. ...

Upgrades Still Dominate MBS.(mortgage backed securities)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Upgrades continued to represent the bulk of rating activity involving U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities in the first quarter, according to Standard & Poor's Ratings Services. S&P's latest Structured Finance Global Ratings Roundup...

Expert Recommends Options as Pipeline Hedging Tool.
June 1, 2003... A panel on managing pipeline fallout at the Mortgage Bankers Association of America's National Secondary Market Conference here suggested the use of options as a hedging tool. There are two different strategies of hedging, said Peter J....

BB&T Bank Weathers Servicing Impairment Charge.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... BB&T Corp. reported net income totaling $327.7 million, or $0.69 per share, in the first quarter despite a $37 million writedown to the value of its mortgage servicing portfolio. The company's net income increased 5.8%, compared from the...

MSR Disclosure Boosts Countrywide's Stock Price.(mortgage servicing rights and Countrywide Financial Corp.)
June 1, 2003... You wouldn't expect to see a company declare that its mortgage servicing rights lost $1 billion in value to impairment and amortization - a fact quickly highlighted by journalists like myself - and then watch its stock price soar on the day...

eLoyalty Teams up with Pegasystems.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Pegasystems Inc., a provider of business process management software, has signed eLoyalty, Lake Forest, Ill., an enterprise customer relationship management services and solutions company, as a services partner to support the sale and...

Western Union Sees Demand for Multiple Payment Options.(Western Union Commercial Services)
June 1, 2003... For many consumers, the days of paying bills by sitting at a dining room table one night a month and writing checks are all but over. These days, many prefer to make payments electronically or via telephone services, and that is opening up...

Special Report: Defaults & Loss Mitigation.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The mortgage servicing industry is facing some challenges. Never mind the impairment and amortization charges that have been piling up on balance sheets as homeowners refinance their loans at a record pace. With portfolio churning at a record...

Fiserv Integrates REO.com into MorgageServ Automation Platform.
June 1, 2003... Fiserv has formed a strategic alliance with REO.com to integrate the online REO firm's Offer Management System into the workflow of the MortgageServ loan servicing platform. The combination will help improve productivity and reduce costs...

Fidelity Provides Interface to BITB.(Fidelity Information Services offers an interface of its Mortgage Servicing Package with MSTD's BackInTheBlack software)
June 1, 2003... Fidelity National Financial, a Fortune 500 provider of real estate and financial services products and services, announced that Fidelity Information Services (formerly Alltel) has completed an interface of its Mortgage Servicing Package with...

Rating Agency Sees Benefit in Loan Modification Strategy.(Fitch Ratings)
June 1, 2003... Commenting on a new servicing technique employed by GMAC-RFC in some residential mortgage- backed securities deals, Fitch Ratings said that loan modifications can be a useful loss mitigation technique when appropriate steps are taken to...

S&P Economist More Worried about Rate Rise than Housing Bubble.(Standard & Poor's chief economist David Wyss)
June 1, 2003... The concept of a housing bubble is "fundamentally misguided," but an interest-rate-driven rise in mortgage payments might someday be a concern, the chief economist at Standard & Poor's said last week at S&P's structured finance seminar...

Home Equity Lines Doing Well.
June 1, 2003... The number of home equity loans that banks reported past due increased by 22 basis points in the fourth quarter, but home equity lines of credit are performing better than any other kind of consumer credit, according to data collected by the...

California Sees Foreclosures Drop.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The number of California homes going into foreclosure declined during the first quarter of this year as a result of strong housing demand and rising prices, according to Inman News Features. Lending institutions started foreclosure...

Lenders Push for Reform as Bankruptcies Hit Record.
June 1, 2003... Last year was a record one for bankruptcy filings, but some members of Congress are continuing to push for legislation that would make it more difficult for consumers to extinguish debts by filing for bankruptcy protection. In March, the...

Court Districts That Saw Big Jumps in Bankruptcy Cases.(Illustration)
June 1, 2003... (Percentage Increase) District of Guam: 31.6% Eastern District of Michigan: 21.9% Middle District of Alabama: 19.5% District of Arizona: 16.5% Western District of Missouri: 15.8% Source: American...

FNAMS Adds to REO Resources with Website Purchase.(Fidelity National Asset Management Solutions acquires contracts and agreements from Real Estate Services Network)
June 1, 2003... Fidelity National Asset Management Solutions, a provider of REO services, has concluded a transaction with Real Estate Services Network of Los Angeles for the acquisition of contracts and agreements to manage and dispose of 1,188 single-family...

GSEs Offer Relief On Military Loans.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said last week that they have initiated steps to ease the forbearance process for borrowers called to active military duty. The two secondary mortgage giants said they will require of all their seller/servicers...

Half of Predatory 'Victims' Not Duped.
June 1, 2003... Half the people who have asked for relief under a program to aid borrowers who have been victimized by predatory lenders were not duped at all, according to a community activist. "They believed they were wronged, but it was really a matter...

Consumer Debt Challenge Looms Before Servicers.
June 1, 2003... While consumers typically prioritize home loan payments over other types of consumer debt, lenders and industry observers are becoming increasingly concerned about the growing debt burden faced by many households. U.S. consumer debt,...

IndyMac Now Among Lighthouse Clients.(IndyMac Bank is a new client of Lighthouse Real Estate Solutions)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Lighthouse Real Estate Solutions has contracted with several new clients for its LINK Loss Mitigation services, including IndyMac Bank. LINK stands for Loss Mitigation-Interface-No Contact-Knowledge. Lighthouse COO Mike Sawdon said his...

Criimi Mae Raises Its Loss Estimate and Adds New Risk Manager to Staff.(Craig M. Lieberman becomes chief portfolio risk officer)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Criimi Mae is increasing its estimate of losses over the life of its commercial mortgage-backed securities portfolio from $448 million to approximately $500 million. The real estate investment trust has also appointed Craig M. Lieberman...

Law Aids Insurance Prospects.(Terrorism Risk Insurance Act)
June 1, 2003... The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act has begun to have its intended effect, resulting in a drop in rates for terrorism coverage and broader coverage being offered by insurance policies, according to Moody's Investors Service. In its report on...

Fitch Sees Rise In CMBS Overdues.(Fitch Ratings and commercial mortgage backed securities)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Fitch Ratings has seen a more than 14% rise in commercial mortgage-backed securities delinquencies in the first quarter over the last quarter of 2002. Fitch's delinquency index reading of 1.39% for the first quarter, up from 1.31% for the...

Midland Awarded $800MM Contract.(Midland Loan Services gets a contract on the Prima Capital Advisors pension fund portfolio)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Overland Park, KS-Midland Loan Services has been awarded an $800 million servicing assignment on the Prima Capital Advisors pension fund portfolio. The portfolio comprises whole commercial loans, investment grade and "B" piece commercial...

Servicing People.(Mortgage servicing staff changes)
June 1, 2003... CALIFORNIA Irvine-Marc A. Farfel has joined Option One Mortgage Corp., a subsidiary of H&R Block, as vice president and director of real estate. In this role, he will be a member of the servicing unit's senior management team, with...

MortgageServ Passes Benchmark.(Fiserv operates the loan servicing platform)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Fiserv announced that its MortgageServ loan servicing platform has the capacity to process in excess of 10 million mortgage loans. Scalability testing conducted by IBM Capacity Planning Services in Cary, N.C., was observed under contract...