Nationstar Now Financing Sales of Its REO

George Fiala

Nationstar Mortgage has started to provide financing for buyers of foreclosed properties on its auction site, Homesearch.com.

"We are starting to get a significant number of leads for our origination channels through the Homesearch site," Nationstar Chief Executive Jay Bray said at an investor conference Feb. 12.

So far, all of the repossessed properties have come out of Nationstar's huge servicing portfolio. And the Lewisville, Texas, servicing company expects to sell 20,000 such properties via Homesearch this year.

But Bray wants real estate companies and other third parties to list their properties on Homesearch.com to increase the number of sales.

Meanwhile, Nationstar has a pipeline of real estate owned to keep Homesearch busy. The nation's sixth largest servicer expects to complete 165,000 foreclosures over five years, which creates 165,000 REO sales opportunities.

Nationstar also estimates its servicing portfolio will generate 750,000 voluntary prepayments over five years and it has chance to recapture and refinance 340,000 of those loans. "There is so much opportunity there and the profit there is significantly higher than the other channels," Bray said.

Nationstar originated $4.5 billion of single-family loans through its consumer direct channel in the third quarter and $2 billion through its correspondent channel. In November, Nationstar agreed to sell its wholesale lending business to Stonegate Mortgage.