Mortgage Servicing News articles from November 2006

Mortgage Servicing News archives from November 2006

Servicing Boosts Industry Profits.(Statistical data)
November 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- After several bad years, mortgage servicers finally raked it in and shored up the profits of their parent companies in 2005, according to a study by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Servicing profits jumped from $21 per loan...

Irwin Unloads $19B of MSRs.(Irwin Mortgage)(Mortgage Servicing News)(Citigroup)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- Citigroup has acquired a majority of Irwin Mortgage's $19 billion servicing portfolio, investment banking sources have told Mortgage Servicing News. The sale was made public in early October but the parties involved declined to...

Performance Outlook Mixed.
November 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- While the national delinquency rate edged lower in the second quarter, underlying numbers may portend a long-term trend toward higher overdue rates. Overall, 4.39% of home loans were at least 30 days late at the end of June,...

Fitch, S&P Revise Criteria.(Standard & Poor's Rating Services)
November 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- With the housing market starting to cool and new loan products gaining a foothold in the market, rating agencies have been busy revising criteria for evaluating the credit risk on deals. Fitch Ratings recently updated its model...

Alt-A Market Sees Steady Growth.(Statistical data)
November 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- Judging from an average 54% year-to-year growth during the second quarter of 2006 both in overall volume among the 15 largest alt-A loan servicers and the top 15 fastest growing firms in this marketplace, demand for alt-A products...

Top Gainers Among 'Alt-A' Servicers in Q2 '06.(Statistical table)
November 1, 2006... (Dollars in Millions) 'Alt-A' Servicers % Rnk Organization Name Location Q2 '06 Q2 '05 change 1 Paul Financial San Rafael,...

Home Federal Bancorp Will Sell Servicing Rights.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... COLUMBUS, IN -- Home Federal Bancorp here plans to restructure part of its balance sheet by selling "substantially all" of its mortgage servicing portfolio. The company also said it will sell a portion of its investment portfolio and issue...

Radius Chooses GMAC Servicing.(Radius Mortgage Capital)(GMAC Mortgage Corp.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... HORSHAM, PA -- GMAC Mortgage Corp., the nation's third-largest subservicer, will handle special servicing for Radius Mortgage Capital, a whole loan mortgage investor and affiliate of Kelly Capital, a private investment firm. Radius, based...

Lenders Bracing For More Defaults.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... PHILADELPHIA -- A survey by Phoenix Management finds a majority of lenders expect to see "softening" in their loan portfolios over the next six to 12 months. In addition, 43% of lenders participating in the quarterly survey said their...

NetBank Sells Servicing But Will Still Manage Portfolio.(IXIS Real Estate Capital)
November 1, 2006... ATLANTA -- NetBank here reached a deal to sell servicing rights on mortgages totaling $8.5 billion at a loss, with most of the asset going to IXIS Real Estate Capital. But IXIS, an investor in servicing rights, will hire NetBank to subservice...

Editorial: Slowdown Won't Crimp Us.(Editorial)
November 1, 2006... Sure, mortgage lending volume is expected to decline this year. And next. And the growth rate for mortgage debt outstanding - a good barometer of the size of the mortgage market - may not be in the double digits anymore. Most industries would...

Point of View: FAS 133 Complications.(Financial Accounting Standards Board)
November 1, 2006... Mr. Kempner is president and chief executive officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association. This viewpoint is an excerpt from a comment letter the MBA sent to the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The text of the full letter can be found on...

Is There a 'Moral Hazard' on Pay-Option ARMs?(Adjustable Rate Mortgage )
November 1, 2006... If you attended the recent Senate Banking Committee hearing on "alternative mortgage products" you might've come away thinking that the payment-option ARM is the worst loan ever created by the mortgage industry. You also might've walked away...

Prepayment Rate Slips Despite Rate Dip.
November 1, 2006... Prepayment rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages in agency mortgage-backed securities declined by 11% across the board in September, according to Bear Stearns & Co. Speeds on 2006 originations remained "relatively unchanged," while...

Freddie's IO Purchases Have Doubled From 2005.(Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.)
November 1, 2006... MCLEAN, VA -- Purchases of interest-only mortgages accounted for 14% of Freddie Mac's total purchase volume in the first half of this year, double the share of IO purchases in 2005. Freddie Mac executives said IO loans still only account...

Countrywide Passes $1.2 Trillion Mark.(Countrywide Financial Corp.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... CALABASAS, CA -- Countrywide Financial Corp.'s mortgage servicing portfolio totaled $1.2 trillion at the end of August, the company said in a monthly operational report. That was an increase of 20%, or by $208 billion, from one year...

Fitch Gives CFC Top Master Rating.(Countrywide Financial Corp.)
November 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- Fitch Ratings has affirmed Countrywide's primary servicer rating and special servicer rating while raising the company's master servicer rating. Fitch raised the company's master servicer rating from "RMS2+" to "RMS1-" - an...

Loan Protector Hosts User Conference.(Loan Protector Insurance Services)(Conference news)
November 1, 2006... CLEVELAND -- Loan Protector Insurance Services, a provider of lender-placed insurance programs for lenders and mortgage servicers, recently hosted its 2006 Annual User Conference in Las Vegas, attracting a record number of attendees and...

Mortgage Insurer Buys Back Stock.(PMI Group)(Goldman Sachs & Co.)
November 1, 2006... SAN FRANCISCO -- The PMI Group here has inked a deal to buy back $345 million worth of its common stock through Goldman Sachs & Co. A spokesman for the company said the accelerated buyback commitment will offset a debenture program that...

MBA Servicing Expo Heads to San Diego.
November 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- The 2007 National Mortgage Servicing Conference & Expo is slated for Feb. 20-23 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego. The keynote speaker will be Robert Ballard, a deep-sea explorer and marine technology innovator who is...

CMBS Servicers Continue to Post Growth.(commercial mortgage-backed securities )(Statistical data)
November 1, 2006... Major commercial mortgage-backed securities servicers have continued to add to their portfolios in the last year, based on a midyear survey of CMBS servicers by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Only firms servicing at least $1 billion of total...

Wall Street Player Questions Accuracy of Appraisals: 'It is amazing to us how many appraisers are doing fraud without even profiting from it.'.(Morgan Stanley-Brad Davis)(Conference news)
November 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- As the chief appraiser for a Wall Street conduit, Brad Davis doesn't have much time to review valuations on huge bulk purchases of single-family loan pools. So he relies on automated valuation models and fraud tools, market...

Fair Isaac Sues Credit Bureaus over Score Competition.
November 1, 2006... MINNEAPOLIS -- Fair Isaac Corp. here has filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court in this city against the three major credit repositories as well as VantageScore Solutions LLC alleging they violated antitrust laws and engaged in unfair...

Genworth Will Insure 40-Year IOs.(Genworth Mortgage Insurance)
November 1, 2006... RALEIGH, NC -- Genworth Mortgage Insurance here has introduced a product it says will allow lenders to offer 40-year interest-only loans, which in turn will allow more consumers to purchase homes in high-priced housing markets. The product is...

PMI Eyes Canadian Loans.(PMI Mortgage Insurance Co.)
November 1, 2006... WALNUT CREEK, CA -- PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. here, already with offices outside the U.S. in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Europe, is looking north of the border for its latest international market. The company has filed an...

Two Get Ratings For Second Liens.
November 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- Moody's Investors Service has recently issued second-lien servicer ratings to two mortgage servicers, Select Portfolio Services and National City. Moody's assigned an "SQ2-" rating to Select Portfolio Servicing as a primary...

Third-Quarter Prepays Reignite Impairment: It's not the accounting rules that vex them but rather the 'convexity' of the mortgage servicing asset itself.
November 1, 2006... Not everyone has to worry about accounting for impairment anymore, but some lenders have chosen to stay with the traditional treatment of mortgage servicing rights in their quarterly financial statements. And for them, the third quarter is...

Regulators Wary of 'Risk Layering' on Alternative Products.
November 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators stuck to their guns in issuing tough final guidance on interest-only and payment-option lending, but opinions are divided over the impact it will have. But few think the new guidance will cause volumes to...

Fraud Reports Deluge FBI: 'We're investigating a sophisticated scheme to defraud' the company.(customers defrauded by Land Economics a mortgage bank)
November 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- Mortgage fraud resulted in losses of $546 million during the first half and are on track to outpace last year, according to newly released government figures. Statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation found...

Auction Firm Sees Growth in Distressed Realty Sales.(Dean Williams - Williams & Williams)
November 1, 2006... TULSA -- An auctioneer here realized about four years ago that the mortgage banking industry has the most to lose in what he calls the "real estate value proposition" if defaults and foreclosures get out of hand. So Dean Williams began...

Moody's Sees Potential Housing Market 'Crash'.
November 1, 2006... WASHINGTON -- The downturn in the housing market is in "full swing," according to Moody's Economy.com, with nearly 20 metropolitan areas set to "crash" over the next 24 months. In one of the most pessimistic forecasts by a major forecasting...

Investors Fleeing Housing Markets.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- Housing market participants are eagerly monitoring every word spoken by Federal Reserve officials while speculators and investors are backing away from the housing market. And that's shaping the prevailing mood in the housing market...

Credit Union to Use FICS Servicing Technology.(Charlotte Metro Credit Union)(Financial Industry Computer Systems Inc.)
November 1, 2006... DALLAS -- A Charlotte, N.C., credit union is implementing a suite of loan origination and servicing technology from Financial Industry Computer Systems here. Charlotte Metro CU purchased FICS' solutions in December 2005 to replace an...

Chase Picks Fidelity MSP.(Chase Home Finance)(Fidelity National Information Services Inc. )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Chase Home Finance, Iselin, N.J., has selected the Fidelity National Information Services Inc. Mortgage Servicing Package to replace and upgrade multiple legacy software platforms for servicing its $600 billion portfolio....

AllRegs Expands Training Services and Web Offerings.
November 1, 2006... EAGAN, MN -- AllRegs, an online publisher of reference information for the residential mortgage industry, recently launched an updated website and enhanced its user application, AllRegs Online. But the new website, which features improved...

High Efficiency Docs.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... In the age of technology, document servicing has already been simplified significantly. However, new e-document options are a convenience and a challenge at the same time, as both servicers and mortgage technology providers look for better,...

Encomia Sees E-Mortgages Easing Document Burden.
November 1, 2006... NEW YORK -- One of the benefits of adopting e-mortgage technology, according to advocates of the trend at Encomia, is that the cost and time devoted to document custody services can be greatly reduced. Electronic documents are also easier...

Bundled Services in Demand.(Nationstar Mortgage of Dallas hired First American Real Estate Solutions L.P. for database management)
November 1, 2006... SANTA ANA, CA -- Bundled services delivered in packages customized to fit specific user needs, such as First American Real Estate Solutions' document tracking and recovery service option, appear to be more and more in demand. Nationstar...

Guardian Expands Document Care.(Guardian Mortgage Documents )
November 1, 2006... LAKEWOOD, CO -- Guardian Mortgage Documents here has expanded beyond basic mortgage closing documents to provide a suite of transaction management services designed to optimize back-office loan closing activities. And with loan...

Top 'Alt-A' Servicers in Q2 '06.(Statistical table)
November 1, 2006... (Dollars in Millions) 'Alt-A' Servicers % Rank Organization Name Location Q2 0'6 Q2 '05 change 1 IndyMac Bancorp, Inc. Pasadena,...

Servicing People.(IndyMac Bank Home Lending hired Linda Hitchcock )(First American Corp. hired Sandra Bell )(PMI Group Inc. hired Steven A. Bernstein )
November 1, 2006... CALIFORNIA Brea-ResMAE Mortgage Corp. appointed John Stumpf as senior vice president of finance. Prior to joining ResMAE, Mr. Stumpf was vice president of finance and treasurer for DDi Corp., a publicly traded provider of high-tech...