Servicing

NeighborWorks America will receive up to $1.275 million from The Homeownership Preservation Foundation, Minneapolis, to support homeownership education and foreclosure prevention.The partnership will link the HPF's toll free number, which offers free foreclosure prevention counseling and advice, with NeighborWorks' national network of organizations that provide homeownership education and counseling. The HPF has committed to grant up to $425,000 over the next 12 months and may contribute an additional $850,000 over the next two years based on the success of the program. The HPF can be found online at www.hpfonline.org.

Remend, a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of default management software tools, has raised an additional $4.2 million in Series A financing that the company plans to use to accelerate market expansion and the continued development of Remend Manager, its principal software product.The new offering complements a $6.3 million Series A offering that closed in April of 2005, completing the Series A financing for a total of $10.5 million. The lead investors were ONSET Ventures and ArrowPath Venture Partners. Remend's products are designed to integrate borrowers, servicers, lenders, real estate agents and investors into a common online workspace.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has extended its moratorium on foreclosures of FHA-insured houses in areas directly impacted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita for another 90 days.HUD extended the moratorium until Feb. 29 to give servicers "additional time in which to confirm the homeowners intention and ability to repair the home, retain homeownership and resume making regular mortgage payments," according to a FHA mortgagee letter. Immediately after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced mandatory suspensions of mortgage payments for three months to provide relief to hurricane victims. That mandatory forbearance period is coming to end. Now FHA, Fannie and Freddie are advising servicers to continue forbearance on a case-by-case basis.

The Market Composite Index, an overall measure of mortgage applications, fell to 635.4 for the week ending November 18, down from 657.6 a week earlier as a 7% drop in refinancing reduced loan application volume, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.The MBA's seasonally adjusted home purchase index fell slightly to 472.3 from 477.9 a week earlier, while the refinancing index declined to 1584.1 from 1702.4 a week earlier. Moreover, the refinancing index was down 17% compared to four weeks earlier. The refinancing share of mortgage applications dipped to 39.9% of total applications from 40.4% the previous week. The adjustable-rate share of activity rose to 33.2%, from 32.9% the previous week. The Mortgage Bankers Association can be found online at www.mortgagebankers.org.

Chase has selected Fiserv's mortgage servicing platform, MortgageServ, to complete a formal due diligence to replace and "substantially upgrade" various legacy platforms for servicing its $515 billion portfolio, the companies have announced.Scott Powell, Chase's head of servicing, said Chase plans to "consolidate and upgrade" its platform to help expand the company's mortgage business. (Chase recently announced plans to add 800 mortgage officers, an increase of 30%, over the next year.) Leslie M. Muma, Fiserv's president and chief executive officer, said the servicing platform will enable Chase to integrate delinquency and default management into its core servicing system and will provide "the flexibility to roll out new products quickly to meet customer needs." The companies can be found online at http://www.jpmorganchase.com and http://www.fiserv.com.

Capital Alliance Income Trust Ltd., a real estate investment trust based in San Francisco, has reported a net loss of $85,721 ($0.21 per share) for the third quarter, compared with net income of $80,750 ($0.05 per share) a year earlier.The residential mortgage REIT attributed the loss to several factors, including a decline in the weighted average yield of its loan portfolio from 12.04% to 10.96% in the 12 months ended Sept. 30 and an increase in the weighted average cost of borrowing. In addition, a shorter weighted average maturity in the portfolio "has accelerated the expensing of certain capitalized loan origination costs," CAIT said. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.calliance.com.

Mortgage-related securities issuance rose to $569.8 billion in the third quarter, up 32.5% from $429.9 billion in the second quarter, according to The Bond Market Association."New issue activity volume in the third quarter was the highest since the third quarter of 2003," the association said in its Research Quarterly report. So far in the fourth quarter, housing markets "continue to defy expectations, and strong home sales should continue to drive mortgage market activity," the association said. But "looking ahead, higher mortgage rates … may curtail mortgage market growth," the group said in its report. The association can be found on the Internet at http://www.bondmarkets.com.

Cleveland-based KeyCorp has announced an agreement to acquire the commercial mortgage-backed securities servicing business of Orix Capital Markets LLC, Dallas, for an undisclosed amount.Key said the transaction would expand its CMBS servicing portfolio from $45 billion to more than $70 billion. Under the agreement, the company would acquire the master, primary, and special servicing rights to a limited number of securitizations on which Orix is the special servicer. Key said it expects to retain all Orix employees associated with the servicing operation. The company said the acquisition would position KeyBank Real Estate Capital as one of the top five commercial loan servicers in the United States. KeyCorp can be found on the Web at http://www.key.com.

Two classes of Lehman HEL Trust 1998-1 securities have been downgraded by Fitch Ratings.Class M-1 was downgraded from BBB to CCC, and class M-2 was downgraded from CCC to C. Fitch also affirmed the rating on one other class in the transaction. The downgrades were attributed to higher-than-expected collateral losses that, as of the Oct. 25 distribution, totaled 3.09%. The collateral consists of nonconforming, closed-end, fixed-rate home equity loans originated by First Union Home Equity Bank and initially acquired by Lehman Capital, a division of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Fitch reported.

GMAC Mortgage Corp., Horsham, Pa., says its subservicing volume increased to $32.5 billion in the third quarter, up 45% from $22.4 billion in the second quarter.GMAC was already the fifth-largest subservicer of residential home loans at the end of the second quarter based on unpaid principal balance, the company said. Tom Donatacci, senior vice president for business development at GMAC Mortgage, attributed the growth to GMAC's scalability as a mega-servicer and its ability to handle a variety of loan products on behalf of subservicing clients. At the end of the third quarter, GMAC serviced $276 billion of home loans in total, including both owned servicing rights and subservicing, according to the Quarterly Data Report, a MortgageWire affiliate.