Investors Warned on Nationstar, Ocwen RMBS Cash Remit Differences

AKS - Fotolia

Analysts are warning investors about the impact of different servicing strategies on the cash flow generated by mortgage servicing rights on securitized delinquent loans.

A Moody’s Investors Service analysis of the loss mitigation practices of Nationstar and Ocwen, two of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing servicers, revealed “particularly different advancing rates on delinquent loans,” enable Nationstar to pay more cash from its securitized subprime residential loans than Ocwen.

Findings matter to investors involved in current and future servicing transfers from portfolios acquired by Nationstar and Ocwen as well as to other residential mortgage-backed securities trusts eyeing MSR market deals.

“Ocwen’s recent acquisition of GMAC’s RMBS servicing portfolio is credit negative for that reason, although GMAC’s performing loans will continue to generate strong cash flow,” explained Jiwon Park, a Moody’s analyst who specializes in the MSR market.

Comparatively, Park wrote in a recent report, Nationstar’s scheduled acquisition of certain RMBS loan portfolios from Bank of America Corp. “is likely to have a minimal impact” on affected loans and their securities because “Nationstar has generally remitted” the same amount of cash on these assets as B of A.

The trend persists across the board with subprime RMBS vintages securitized between 2005 and 2010. Data show Nationstar implements higher advancing rates for delinquent loans and consistently pays more cash than Ocwen. Higher cash payments help keep the RMBS credit positive “because they pay down senior bonds with priority and more quickly,” the analyst wrote.

For example, during the first two months of the third quarter of this year, Nationstar’s monthly cash flow remittances from principal and interest collections, net proceeds from short sales and foreclosure liquidations, voluntary prepayments and delinquent loan advances was at 0.82% of the servicer’s outstanding RMBS balance, compared to 0.77% for Ocwen.

Park finds advancing rate differences between the two servicers are significant. During the same time period the amount of cash generated from distressed securities by source, Nationstar paid 0.07% of the balances from delinquent loan advances, compared to only 0.02% paid by Ocwen.

Loss mitigation strategies also influenced the amount of cash remittances leading to higher revenue from Nationstar’s REO property liquidations, while Ocwen is more successful in generating cash from loan modifications.

In the long term, however, even though Ocwen stops generating advances much faster than Nationstar, its much lower cash flow advances on delinquent loans is not expected to have a long-term effect on the relatively large GMAC portfolio, which includes a larger percentage of performing loans.