Mortgage Servicing News articles from June 2008

Mortgage Servicing News archives from June 2008

CFC's B&C Overdues Hit 36%.
June 1, 2008... Calabasas, CA -- At the end of March, 36% of subprime mortgages being serviced by Countrywide Financial Corp. were in some stage of delinquency, according to a recent public filing by the company. Countrywide services roughly $100 billion...

Investors Grow Flexible on Mods.
June 1, 2008... Washington -- Servicers are quickly adopting new strategies and tactics as they try to balance borrower and investor interests, according to several servicing executives who are trying almost anything to stem rising defaults and foreclosures....

Firm Heeds Critics.
June 1, 2008... Washington -- Countrywide Financial Corp. said it is improving the way it services mortgages for homeowners in bankruptcy after U.S. trustees have raised concerns about its servicing practices and the fees it charges those borrowers who are...

Servicers Alerted to Reverse Scams.(mortgage banks)
June 1, 2008... Philadelphia -- The reverse mortgage sector has not been overlooked by the scam artists that have pillaged the rest of the mortgage business. But servicers can fight back by thinking like a criminal. "You don't have to hire a criminal, just...

Fannie Willing To Go to 120%.(Federal National Mortgage Association)(Financial report)
June 1, 2008... Washington -- Fannie Mae is introducing a refinancing option for underwater mortgages as it searches for ways to contain credit losses and provide its seller/servicers with additional tools to help struggling homeowners. In reporting a...

Offshoring Gets Easier, But with a Caveat.
June 1, 2008... Dallas -- It's easier than ever to outsource loan administration work to low-cost labor centers such as India, but lenders who have gone this route find that labor prices are rising in some key cities of India where many U.S. firms have set up...

Home Values Are Slow to Rebound.(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Dallas -- Falling house prices and a slowing economy will continue to affect default rates as well as the recession-like situation in the fourth quarter of 2007 when the market saw a further increase in defaults and foreclosures, especially in...

Servicers See Big Increase in Mods.(Hope Now alliance estimates )
June 1, 2008... Washington -- The Hope Now alliance estimates that mortgage servicers provided borrowers with more than a half-million loan workouts in the first quarter, bringing the total number of workouts completed since last July to 1.4 million. The...

MBA to Teach Loss-Mit Class.(Master of business administration degree )(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Washington -- CampusMBA, the educational division of the Mortgage Bankers Association, has created an instructor-led loss mitigation workshop for industry professionals. The option comes at a time when lenders are struggling to beef up their...

Editorial: Revenge of the FHA.(Editorial)
June 1, 2008... In today's world, some of the hottest mortgage products to hit the market in recent years have gone bust. Payment-option ARMs, interest-only loans and subprime hybrids helped homebuyers and investors get in as the housing market was cresting...

Point of View: Unleashing the Power Of Servicing: By Kai Monahan and Binh HuaKai.
June 1, 2008... Mortgage servicing, like Thomas Jefferson - who famously counseled never to use two words when one will do - prizes efficiency. Indeed, even though financial markets are often more complex than an 18th century tract, the business of servicing...

Prepayments Slow after February Surge.
June 1, 2008... Overall prepayment rates for mortgage-backed securities fell 6.9% in March after surging 52% in February, suggesting that speeds "were front-loaded in February, most likely as originators tried to avoid the new delivery fees applicable from...

Outperformance Rules the Day Again.
June 1, 2008... With servicing costs rising along with delinquency and default rates, people in the industry may be looking for a silver lining. For some big lenders, it's been hedging "outperformance." Outperformance is really just another way of saying...

Street Vets Shopping For a Loan Servicer?
June 1, 2008... New York -- Former Deutsche Bank loan traders Michael Commaroto and Paul Mangione are talking to investor Leon Black about starting a fund to bottom-fish in delinquent mortgages and securities, industry officials told National Mortgage News....

Analyst Sees Brighter Outlook for MGIC's Loans.
June 1, 2008... Milwaukee -- An analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey, Arlington, Va., has cut his 2008 loss estimates for MGIC Investment Corp. here by more than half, as the company's first-quarter results were better than anticipated. The cut, from an...

Genworth and ORI Feeling Some Pain.
June 1, 2008... Chicago -- Driven by losses in the mortgage insurance and title insurance segments of its business, Old Republic International Corp. here posted a first-quarter 2008 net loss of $19 million, or $0.08 per share, compared with net income of...

Flagstar Pays for Change in MSR Accounting.
June 1, 2008... Troy, MI -- Flagstar Bancorp lost $10.6 million in the first quarter as a change in accounting for mortgage servicing rights and higher credit costs damaged the company's results. Still, the first-quarter loss was an improvement from the...

Downey Still Faces More Credit Pressure.
June 1, 2008... Arlington, VA -- Analysts at Friedman Billings Ramsey here have upgraded their rating on Downey Financial Corp. to "market perform" from "underperform," even as they lowered their price target on the company's shares to $13. The lower...

FDIC Says Pay-Downs Could Save a Million Loans.
June 1, 2008... Washington -- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. unveiled a bold $50 billion "pay down" loan program last month to facilitate the restructuring of underwater mortgages and potentially prevent one million foreclosures. The FDIC proposal...

Market Gets More Transparent.
June 1, 2008... At SourceMedia's Mortgage Servicing conference, held in Dallas in April, we gathered some prominent industry executives to discuss issues facing loan servicers, including asset management, default trends and other challenges facing servicers....

Central Database and Analytics Helps Borrowers.
June 1, 2008... Dallas -- Hope Now, the nation's largest partnership of government, private and nonprofit entities, is proving this strategy is one of the most efficient ways to assist those who are suffering from the subprime mortgage crisis. The reason,...

FirstFed Increases Single-Family Loss Allowance as Portfolio Faces More Stress.(Financial report)
June 1, 2008... Santa Monica, CA -- FirstFed Financial Corp., parent of First Federal Bank of California, expects to substantially increase its allowance for loan losses related to single-family home loans. The bank expects to report a loan loss provision...

Servicers Focus on Minimizing Default Loan Loss.(Conference notes)
June 1, 2008... Dallas -- Servicers continue to be focused on minimizing loan losses for lenders and investors and restoring liquidity to the mortgage market. At the SourceMedia Mortgage Servicing Conference here, speakers said the impact of the subprime...

BoA to Mitigate Foreclosed Countrywide Loans.
June 1, 2008... Washington -- Bank of America is promising regulators it will devote substantial resources to prevent foreclosures after it takes control of Countrywide's $1.47 trillion mortgage servicing portfolio. BoA president Liam McGee told Federal...

Florida Condo Communities Hit by Crisis.
June 1, 2008... Fort Lauderdale, FL -- A new survey of property owners in Florida's condominium, homeowner and other community associations shows rising mortgage foreclosures are causing revenue shortfalls that pose significant threats to operating and...

Despite Plush 1st Quarter, REITS Cautious on CRE.
June 1, 2008... New York -- Keefe Bruyette & Woods released its first-quarter scorecard for equity REITs, which includes a snapshot look at first-quarter earnings results for the 25 equity REITs/REOCs that have already reported across various property sectors....

Moody's: Is CRE Turning Corner?(commercial real estate )(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... New York -- Commercial real estate prices as measured by Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices rose 2.1% in February, offsetting most of the losses the CPPI had posted since October. "We interpret the CPPI's increase in February...

Citi Raising $4.5 Billion In Latest Capital Boost.
June 1, 2008... New York -- Shares of Citigroup sank more than 2% last Wednesday after the company priced a $4.5 billion common stock offering. Citi had previously announced its intention to issue $3 billion of shares but raised the amount in response to...

Handicapping the Future of Wholesale Lending.
June 1, 2008... As the old saying goes: it ain't over until the fat lady sings. In this case the "it" is wholesale lending in America and the fat lady is sitting in the "green room" singing her head off with Pavarotti coaching. It's safe to say that the...

Countrywide Loses $893M.
June 1, 2008... Calabasas, CA -- Countrywide Financial Corp. here took $3 billion of credit-related charges in the first quarter, widening the company's loss well above Wall Street expectations. The company lost $893 million, or $1.60 per share, in the...

Green Tree to Buy Origen's Servicing.(Origen Financial and Green Tree Servicing)
June 1, 2008... New York -- Origen Financial, a manufactured housing lender, has agreed to sell its servicing platform and related assets to Green Tree Servicing. The deal includes the transfer of approximately $1.6 billion of manufactured housing loans....

Ross Completes Option One Purchase.(WL Ross & Co. LLC and Option One Mortgage Corp)
June 1, 2008... New York -- Now that WL Ross & Co. LLC is the proud owner of two midsized (mostly) nonprime servicing units, its next step is to buy a savings and loan - or two, or maybe even three. Last month, WLR CEO Wilbur Ross signaled his intent to...

DOC Custody.(document)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... The days of storing mortgage legal documents in offsite warehouses may be limited as the industry increasingly embraces electronic commerce. But whether documentation comes in the form of digital documents, electronic images of paper originals,...

Midland Helps ARCs Manage Data and Documents.
June 1, 2008... Kansas City, MO -- PNC ARCs, a commercial mortgage lender, and Midland Loan Services, a commercial mortgage servicer and technology provider, are both members of the PNC Financial Services Group, so it's little surprise that PNC ARCS has bought...

MRG Teams Up With Lydian Data.(MRG Document Technologies)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... New York -- MRG Document Technologies, Dallas, and Lydian Data Services, Boca Raton, Fla., have formed an alliance to enable lenders to outsource services spanning from origination to post-closing quality control. The alliance enables MRG to...

Xerox Integrates New E-Document Functionality.
June 1, 2008... Atlanta -- On the heels of the Xerox acquisition of BlitzDocs, the new entity dubbed Xerox Mortgage Services is using technology from its parent to enhance electronic document management functionality for its users. Were always looking at...

Overture Takes Second Look at Credit Risk.(Conference notes)
June 1, 2008... Boston -- As the mortgage industry looks to restore investor confidence as well as its own tarnished image, Overture Technologies suggests that a concept called re-decisioning may be the answer. Today securitization is done with macros and...

Keystone Beefs Up Training.(Keystone Asset Management)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Lansdale, PA -- Keystone Asset Management, which provides REO, default management and property valuation outsourcing to servicers, conducted a training program for the real estate agents and brokers who do work for the firm. The program...

10,000 E-Notes on MERS.
June 1, 2008... Vienna, VA -- MERS, the electronic registry for tracking ownership of mortgage loans and servicing rights, said it now had registered more than 10,000 electronic mortgage notes. AmTrust Bank registered the ten thousandth e-note, MERS said....

FTC Investigating EMC.
June 1, 2008... Washington -- The Federal Trade Commission's multiyear investigation into the servicing practices of EMC Mortgage Corp. has finally placed the Bear Stearns & Co. affiliate in hot water. FTC director of consumer protection Lydia Parnes told...

Servicing People.
June 1, 2008... CALIFORNIA Westlake Village-Velocity Commercial Capital has added Rob Weening to its management team. In his role as chief financial officer, Mr. Weening will lead the finance and accounting areas for Velocity. He brings more than...

RMS Sees Growth In Reverse Servicing.
June 1, 2008... Spring, TX -- With the baby boom generation starting to enter retirement, the business of making reverse mortgages is entering a growth phase. The baby boomers, more comfortable than earlier generations taking out debt, make for prime Home...