Servicing

A lawsuit has been filed questioning the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s decision to block municipalities from using eminent domain to modify a distressed borrower’s mortgage and prevent foreclosures.

The City Council unanimously approved a plan to make market-value offers on toxic loans and reissue them to homeowners.

It will use CoreLogic data to empower research conducted by the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center.

Rising interest rates means lenders’ refinance business will dwindle, forcing them to compete for buyers by potentially loosening their lending standards.

Cities and federal agencies have new requirements for maintaining foreclosed assets, so property preservation and servicing executives now spend lots of time poring over local codes.

Compensation for the business will be at a significant amount above book value.

A continuing reduction in bank-owned foreclosure inventories alongside third-quarter existing home inventory increases suggests “inventory bottomed early in 2013.”

The move will facilitate investments in mortgage servicing rights and whole loan portfolios for American Capital Mortgage and give RCS access to investment capabilities and capital.

Banks subject to the 2012 settlement over botched foreclosures failed in many cases to provide timely or adequate notifications to borrowers in various stages of the modification or foreclosure process.

Independent mortgage bankers’ net income declined 60 basis points between the second and third quarters, Richey May data show. Some penny pinching is in order.