Servicing

For the sixth consecutive month, the state of California experienced good news in terms of pending home sales.

NCUA said Tuesday afternoon it filed another suit against a big investment firm over the sale of mortgage-backed securities to failed corporate credit unions, this one naming defunct Wachovia Bank and its subsidiaries as defendants.

Application volume fell by 11.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ended Nov. 25, with the data adjusted to take into account Thanksgiving, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

In a worst case scenario investors in bonds issued by The PMI Group could lose upwards of $737 million because the notes are considered "unsecured" according to court papers issued in the mortgage insurer's bankruptcy filing.

Independent consultants conducting foreclosure reviews at the residential servicing units of 12 national banks are specifically required to look for possible foreclosure violations involving active duty soldiers.

The recurring theme of financial literacy may be old, but it keeps pushing itself forward and into the agenda of mortgage lenders and servicers as banks struggle to understand their borrowers' financial decision-making patterns.

Insight into the relationships between banks and consumers deemed critical to the recovery of both the housing market and the overall economy indicate mortgage banks need be aware of misperceptions about how mortgage delinquency and economic stress impacted borrower behavior-including "strategic default."

Fitch expects to revise the rating outlook for what appears to be a relatively small number of residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities to negative in line with the negative outlook it has assigned to the U.S. sovereign rating and to issuer-default ratings of mortgage-related government-sponsored enterprises.

Radian Guaranty is seeking waivers in 12 states of risk-to-capital requirements, even though it does have $600 million in capital at the parent company level available to downstream to the mortgage insurer, chief financial officer Bob Quint said during a presentation at the FBR Capital Markets Fall Investor Conference.

Disposing of the growing inventory of REO properties held by the GSEs, lenders/servicers and investors is a daunting task that would test the creative marketing abilities of any organization. It still is anyone's guess how long it may take this inventory to clear.