Servicing

The California State Legislature passed legislation on two issues that will be included in the state’s Homeowner Bill of Rights and help protect homeowners from mortgage scams.

A new Lender Processing Services offering helps servicers match first and subordinate liens on a property to streamline the process of modifying mortgages for distressed borrowers.

Treasury Department officials are working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency on ways to structure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS, allowing private investors to share in some of the credit risk on government-guaranteed securities.

Residential Capital’s bankruptcy filing on May 14 is a credit negative for two major bond insurers, Moody’s Investors Service said.

When the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced in the spring of 2011 that a group of major mortgage servicers had signed consent orders agreeing to a host of new regulations and reforms, the regulatory landscape of the mortgage servicing industry was fundamentally altered in ways that would have a profound and lasting impact.

Although the U.S. soccer team lost to Brazil the other night we can thank the interest rate gods that investors, world wide, keep buying our Treasury bonds, driving prices up and bond yield downs. In the past I've joked about a 30-year fixed rate loan at 2% and I'm starting to believe that it could happen.

The Treasury Department's inspector general said while the OCC focused on loan workout policies at major servicers, its supervision from 2008 through 2010 was "not sufficient in scope or application to identify significant weaknesses in national banks' foreclosure documentation and processing functions."

The expanded Home Affordable Refinancing Program kicked into full speed during the first quarter with volumes doubling to 180,000 units compared to the prior period.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency "underestimated" the risk of poor foreclosure practices at national banks and did not devote enough examination resources to identify those problems, according to the agency's chief watchdog, the U.S. Treasury's inspector general.

The latest round of weaker-than-expected U.S. employment numbers has driven the long-term rate-indicative 10-year Treasury yield to yet another record low.