Servicing

Freddie Mac's decision to hike its delivery fees on higher LTV loans is raising hackles at the National Association of Realtors which has been calling on the GSEs to ease up on their "excessively tight" credit policies.

Home prices fell 0.7% in September -- the second monthly decline since July – with values sliding in 18 of the 20 cities measured by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller house price index.

Walter Investment Management Corp., Tampa, said it has signed deals to pay $90 million for several pools of mostly performing first liens from undisclosed sellers.

A subsidiary of homebuilder Lennar Corp. completed its first closing of a real estate fund to invest in distressed real estate assets.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have resumed sales of foreclosed properties that were placed on hold in late September due to questions about improper affidavits used in the foreclosure process.

A former managing director and head of European residential mortgage- and asset-backed securities at Morgan Stanley is filling a somewhat similar role at Jefferies.

In an era of low interest rates, weak loan demand and unprecedented efforts by the Federal Reserve Board to pump liquidity into the economy, the demand for Federal Home Loan Bank advances has plummeted to a 10-year low, raising questions about the system's future as the government weighs a redesign of the housing finance sector.

Interactive Mortgage Advisors, Denver, is selling a $226 million portfolio of bulk Fannie Mae servicing rights for an undisclosed client.

The same old REO disposition model, multiplied across millions of REOs, threatens to convert hard-hit American neighborhoods into transient rental zones. Declining homeownership rates promise a new form of damage to communities already plagued by high vacancy rates, property abandonment, vandalism and underfunded tax rolls. Study after study links high owner occupancy rates to everything from improved educational achievement for children to decreased rates of crime. So when a neighborhood’s homeownership rate rapidly falls, the negative consequences multiply.

Fannie Mae is contemplating selling nonperforming mortgages out of its portfolio, offering the notes to the highest bidder, according to vendors and investors who have talked to the GSE about the plan.