Servicing

It is not all bad news...Findings from Standard & Poor’s and Experian show customer credit defaults are steadily declining for mortgages and all other credit lines giving hope for an uptake in consumer spending that will help the overall economic recovery. In October the first mortgage S&P Experian Consumer Credit Default Index declined to 2.91, a decrease of 3.36% from the previous month and 38.15% from the October 2009 level.

Short sale processing inefficiencies are challenging servicers' efforts to shift the foreclosure-short sale ratio, which currently sides heavily on foreclosures. Capacity pressures add to that challenge, at least in the near future.Addressing a panel at the Source Media Best Practices in Short Sales and REO conference in San Diego, president and CEO of the Irvine, Calif.-based MOS Group, Greg Hebner reminded industry peers that data is not encouraging.

The 50 state attorneys general investigating the robo-signing debacle are looking at issues regarding the accuracy of information used by servicers in the foreclosure process as well as the imposition of fees and force-placed insurance, according to Iowa AG Tom Miller.

The 12 Federal Home Loan Banks are getting closer to paying off their REFCORP obligations and their regulator wants them to use that extra money to rebuild retained earnings.

Bank of America, the nation's largest servicer of home mortgages, said in prepared testimony Tuesday that the company is at a "crossroads" between loan modification efforts "and the reality of foreclosure" with 14% of its home mortgage customers in some stage of delinquency.

Commercial real estate investment banking firm George Smith Partners has hired Eric Hamermesh as senior vice president, and director of business development.

Impac Mortgage Holdings, Irvine, posted a profit just shy of $1 million in the third quarter, a 68% decline from the same period last year, as it struggles to generate new revenue from its mortgage and real estate service businesses.

Amid continued weakness for the Federal Home Loan Bank System, its chief regulator said it is committed to getting the regional GSEs back to their core mission of lending to members.

The American Securitization Forum Tuesday continued to defend residential mortgage-backed securities against foreclosure-related challenges with the release of a promised study that its executive director said differs from the findings of a congressional oversight committee on the issue.

While robo-signing has been the most high-profile foreclosure concern for residential mortgage-backed securities lately, it appears it is a relatively low risk compared to the currently less-prominent one related to missing and defective documents, according to a recent Moody’s Investors Service report.