Servicing

House prices may go up and down over the next two years. But looking back it will appear relatively flat. That’s why it is a good time for patient investors to buy foreclosed properties, according to Rick Sharga, EVP, Carrington Mortgage Services.

As 2012 begins, the California Department of Real Estate is still warning consumers to be wary of promises for loan modification, mortgage relief and foreclosure rescue scams as fraudsters to continue prey on vulnerable, financially stressed homeowners.

A global settlement has been reached between Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin and thousands of homeowners who filed a lawsuit who claimed that the company’s tainted Chinese drywall product was used to construct their properties and severely damaged their homes.

Between foreclosures and paying down their loans through “cash-in” refinancings, the nation’s mortgagors are continuing to whittle down their housing debt—and that’s bad news for the nation’s servicers.

As it shifts into a more customer-driven philosophy, insiders say, the mortgage servicing business model is becoming more woman-friendly than ever.

Of the 11 largest servicers evaluated through the Fannie Mae Servicer Total Achievement and Rewards program, only CitiMortgage, Everbank, GMAC Mortgage (Ally Bank) and Wells Fargo made a satisfactory grade in the third quarter.

The surge in refinancings this fall pushed Fannie Mae's issuance of mortgage-backed securities to $63.7 billion in November, up 20% from the prior month.

Since launching its short sale module in November 2009, the default servicing technology provider Equator said approximately 1.2 million short sales have been facilitated through its platform.

The backlog of real estate owned homes held by banks and the government is "staggering," Fitch Inc. said.

One hallmark of the Dodd-Frank Act was the creation of the Office of Financial Research, an agency dedicated to collecting and sifting data from financial firms to help predict the next crisis.