Servicing

Amherst Securities Group this week hired three mortgage industry veterans to expand its sales division: Peter Davidson, Chris Heaney and Chris O'Neill.

Even though its core business is homebuilding, the problem loan business has been a profitable one for Lennar Corp. in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2010, which ended on Nov. 30.

Interest rates jumped, pipeline pressure fell, and profit margins on mortgage production appear to have retreated in the fourth quarter.

In November U.S. home prices declined for the fourth month in a row, a sign that housing markets are still on shaky ground, according to new figures released by CoreLogic, Santa Ana, Calif.

The 30-day delinquency rate on 'open end' home equity lines of credit fell 7 basis points to 1.74% in the third quarter, reaching a low not seen since 2008, according to new figures released by the American Bankers Association.

What will 2011 hold for the mortgage industry? It is shaping up to be a poor year for originations, a big year for servicing, and a key year for the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Capital Markets Cooperative and the Bank of Internet have formed an alliance to offer a proprietary jumbo product that the bank has just started offering on a correspondent basis.

The Federal Housing Administration on Monday revised the November seriously delinquent rate for FHA-insured single family loans down to 8.34%.

Ginnie Mae is raising the minimum net worth requirement for issuers of FHA-insured reverse mortgages to $5 million from $1 million, while establishing a minimum servicing fee for 'home equity conversion mortgage' MBS.

A foundation representing investors in the United States as well as three other parts of the globe said it is taking a shareholder fraud action in a Utrecht civil court related to a major acquisition by Fortis NV, a European company that had been hard hit by U.S. subprime exposures and subsequently went through a government bailout.