Servicing

Freddie Mac posted net "comprehensive" earnings $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter, but must turn around and pay the U.S. Treasury a $1.7 billion dividend, which means it ultimately lost money during the period.

It may be a buyer's market for residential servicing rights but that isn't stopping mortgage banking firms from unloading their legacy housing receivables in an attempt to clean up their balance sheets.

Quandis has partnered with technology business provider CSC to offer a new short sale tracking and fulfillment portal for the company’s EarlyResolution default management solution in order to accelerate processing cycles.

Old Republic International Corp.'s liquidity is "moderately tighter than previously expected," warned Fitch Ratings. This places greater uncertainty on ORI's ability to fund a potential debt acceleration.

Suddenly, it appears that mortgage banking is hot. Okay, maybe hot is not the best word, but in the past few weeks two residential-related IPOs have hit the market: Nationstar Mortgage, and Home Loan Servicing Solutions. Both are specialty servicers (of sorts), though the latter is really just a shell corporation created to unlock MSR value for Ocwen Financial Corp. (Or maybe I'm being too critical?)

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc.'s initial public offering opened this morning on the New York Stock Exchange at $13.58 per share, which is below its pricing late yesterday at $14 per share. At 11:20 am the stock was trading at $13.89 per share.

It may be the best of times to be a commercial, multifamily banker and the worst of times to be a servicer of securitized multifamily loans.

Moody's Investor Service this week went "negative" on the mortgage insurance industry, citing the sector's weak financials and calling its future "unclear."

The average rate for a 15-year fixed rate mortgage set a new record low and the average 30-year FRM rate slid a bit to a point not far from its bottom in Freddie Mac's closely watched primary market survey.

Safeguard Properties has launched an online series of free, educational videos that describe the role field service businesses play while working with mortgage servicers and investor clients.