Paul Muolo

Aurora Loan Services, Denver, recently halted residential production as the company continues to weigh bids on its servicing platform, according to a former ALS official and industry consultants.

Perhaps, banks that have been exiting the residential finance space will look really stupid if housing and mortgages recover. Figures released Thursday suggest that delinquencies are falling but a huge overhang of foreclosures is on the way. Corporate earnings are at record levels, employment is rising, and just maybe, maybe housing is on the mend. But a huge stumbling block remains: ultra tight underwriting standards.

The delinquency rate on all outstanding residential mortgages fell to a three-year low in the fourth quarter with most loan types improving except for one product: FHA.

The government owned Ally Financial has agreed to sell $1 billion worth of senior notes to a group of underwriters including Barclays Capital, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

BlackRock Inc., the investment firm headed by MBS veteran Larry Fink, recently increased its position in PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust to 5.48%, more than double its last recorded stake.

Nationstar Mortgage, the nation's 11th largest servicer, is in talks to buy all or parts of Aurora Loan Services, according to industry advisors close to the situation.

Last summer when MetLife revealed that it would sell its "forward" mortgage business the company did something smart for its workers: it paid for its loan officers to take classes and obtain their state licenses.

Roughly 43% of borrowers with 30-year loans who refinanced into a new product during the fourth quarter chose shorter maturities, the highest reading since 2003.

Politicians - including those in the White House - continue to jawbone about how the private sector needs to step up and create a whole new securitization market that some day will replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This effort - supposedly - starts with the safest non GSE product out there: jumbo loans where well-heeled borrowers put down (say) 10% and are so filthy rich that their chance of default is next to nil.

Just how hungry is Ocwen Financial Corp. for servicing rights? In a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission the nonbank servicer discloses that it is currently reviewing $300 billion of MSRs for purchase.

How much does Bank of America loathe the mortgage business? Let us count the ways: it kills its wholesale and correspondent units, trims its warehouse group down to nothing, allows its departing high-performance loan officers to leave and then starts lopping off huge chunks of its servicing portfolio.

Caliber Funding LLC, Irving, Texas, Monday morning made it official: it has hired 300 "lending professionals" who were recently let go by MetLife Home Loans.

The Obama White House, in its new budget, predicts that the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance fund will return to health by 2015 -- but warns that the agency's book of business is vulnerable to what it calls "Black Swans."

A mortgage banking firm specializing in VA loans is trying to sell $4.5 billion of GNMA-backed mortgage servicing rights through Interactive Mortgage Advisors, Denver.

Interactive Mortgage Advisors is offering a $4.5 billion MSR package with another $1 billion in the works. Phoenix Capital is peddling $35 billion of MSRs for Bank of America - with more on that way.

Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock Financial, is nobody's fool - not by a long shot. He cut his teeth at First Boston many moons ago, helped shape the MBS market, and then went on to create a financial services powerhouse: BlackRock

MountainView Servicing Group, Denver, is auctioning off a $305 million package of Fannie Mae servicing rights for an undisclosed seller.

Will Clint Eastwood walk through the streets of Minneapolis, proclaiming how the U.S. mortgage industry is back? If you're not sure what I'm talking about, go see last weekend's Chrysler/Fiat commercial during the Super Bowl. (As an aside, I think the whole political take on that commercial has been blown way out of proportion.)

Fannie Mae has hired Wells Fargo mortgage executive Anthony 'Tuck' Reed as a senior executive in charge of customer strategy and support in its single-family business, according to colleagues who have been briefed on the matter.

EverBank, which has been carefully growing its mortgage business the past few years, has agreed to purchase the warehouse division of MetLife Inc., the company confirmed to National Mortgage News.