Servicing

The nationwide frenzy over foreclosure moratoriums and servicer accountability is worrying investors about the cost of unintended consequences.The Association of Mortgage Investors said it supports a mortgage industry practices reform that will ensure responsible parties are held legally accountable.

A lawsuit is bringing the spotlight on how lack of loan servicing transparency that ensures open in-house exchange of data and communication between departments can cause losses.Filed by a group of homeowners it claims Aurora Loan Services LLC reaped $100 million from delinquent homeowners promising to modify their loans but instead had their properties foreclosed with little or no notice.

Home prices fell 1.5% August compared to a year ago, according to the newly released CoreLogic house price index, which registered it first annual decline this year.

If servicing and processing problems continue to bog down foreclosures, there should be a way to permit "necessary and justified" foreclosures to continue, according to FDIC chairman Sheila Bair.

BRES Advisors, Inc. on Monday launched a new analytical application, REOlyticsT, which models future behavior of residential assets by taking into account local market models, future absorption rates, and other factors.

Lenders should face penalties for violating representation and warranty clauses — beyond their obligation to re-purchase the loans — according to an expert in managing risk on mortgage-backed securities.

Capacity issues — in terms of the number of reliable bodies available to take mortgage loan applications — is a key reason why the loan brokerage sector will survive, attendees of the MBA convention in Atlanta were told Monday morning.

It's time for mortgage originators to draw a line in the sand when it comes to being forced to buy back loans from investors, an industry veteran said at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention in Atlanta.

Robo-signers and foreclosure mills perpetrating fraud on the courts. Bond investors questioning the contents of mortgage-backed security trusts. Challenges to banks' legal standing. These problems, once viewed as isolated or inconsequential, have been conflated into a monster supposedly capable of paralyzing foreclosures and obscuring the rightful ownership of real estate nationwide.

The Mortgage Bankers Association has declared that the "punitive" penalties the Department of Housing and Urban Development charges servicers for failing to initiate foreclosures on a timely basis are "arbitrary in their severity" and need to be changed.