Servicing

Morgan Stanley & Co. last week took a final round of bids on its residential servicing division, Saxon Mortgage, Ft. Worth, Texas, which holds $28 billion of contracts on its books, according to investment banking officials familiar with the situation.

After a long drought of mergers and acquisitions activity, the market for, among others, private-mortgage companies, is showing signs of life and recovery. If you own, operate or advise a middle-market company, $5 million to $500 million in revenue, what does this mean for you and your clients when thinking about shareholder liquidity or selling the business? And how can you improve the odds of getting a deal done?

Mortgage banks may soon focus more on a minority borrower group they may have overlooked. A recent study found Chinese-Americans hold almost no consumer debt outside of typical mortgage loans, indicating these borrowers are a mortgage lender/servicer’s dream customer.

Clayton Holdings, Shelton, Conn., Tuesday announced the formation of a new securitization group to aid the industry in what it hopes will be a revival of the private label MBS market.

Bank of America said it is receiving more buyback requests for older vintages of loans from Fannie Mae and plans to contest some of these claims regarding breaches of representations and warranties.

Freddie Mac economists are expecting a surge in refinancings during the fourth quarter and recently increased their origination forecast for the period by nearly 70%.

Fannie Mae's recently priced $577 million multifamily DUS REMIC highlights moves the agency is making to court an agency CMBS investor base that appears to be broadening as activity has subsided somewhat in the CMBS conduit market.

Interactive Mortgage Advisors, Denver, is auctioning off a $57 million portfolio of bulk servicing rights for an undisclosed seller.

Examiners from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may look the same, but they won't necessarily see the same. The bureau is employing many of the same examiners -- and similar methods -- that the banking regulators have used for years to conduct exams, according to the CFPB's supervision and examination manual released last week.

Bank of America marked down the asset value of its residential servicing portfolio by a stunning 36% in the third quarter, but managed to post mortgage banking income of $1.8 billion during the period.