Servicing

At the beginning of this new year, President Obama, much to the chagrin of many Republicans in Congress and constituents in the mortgage banking community, appointed Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Does Cordray's appointment to the CFPB mean: For every problem there is an opportunity?

A real estate company that bought and sold 300 foreclosed single-family properties last year does not feel threatened by the expected launch of a federal bulk investor program for converting REO units into rentals.

Federal regulators must levy fines against residential servicers under their purview to show there are real consequences for their "severe misconduct," according to Federal Reserve governor Sarah Bloom Raskin.

Freddie Mac is providing up to one year of forbearance for unemployed borrowers to pay their mortgage.

When foreclosure and short sales are excluded from the CoreLogic home price index, it shows that values declined just 0.6% over the 12 months ending November 30.

Investors holding at least $800 million of secured bonds in Residential Capital Corp. have organized in the event the mortgage firm's parent company, Ally Financial, throws the company into bankruptcy.

Thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act, mortgage servicers will continue to have their hands full this year.

New York Fed President William Dudley stressed the need to take forceful action to aid the real estate market, which has been a drag on the economy, but stopped short of offering a silver bullet solution, in a speech before the New Jersey Bankers Association Friday.

After months of waiting as their counterparts began examining banks, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's nonbank supervision team began the enormous task Thursday of overseeing the rest of the consumer financial sector.

Perfect Circle Credit Union in Richmond, Ind. is piloting a different method of disposing of the REO houses it obtains in foreclosure, by fixing them up, furnishing them and making them available in a rent-to-own sale.