Servicing

In the second quarter of 2011, the volume of outstanding commercial and multifamily mortgage debt increased by 0.1% marking the first quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

HP Enterprise Services, Palo Alto, California, has signed a five-year extension of its agreement with Loan Value Group LLC, Rumson, N.J.

Freddie Mac purchased $28 billion of mortgages from its seller/servicers in August, a 33% spike from the prior month, and a clear sign that originations are picking up in the primary market.

Nationstar Mortgage, Lewisville, Texas, is continuing talks to buy Bank of America's correspondent lending division, or at least parts of it, according to industry advisors who claim to have knowledge of the situation.

Back in 2006, Fannie Mae officials knew that attorneys representing the GSE were filing false documents in foreclosure proceedings but did nothing about it, according a new inspector general report.

The New York Times is reporting that the government is seriously contemplating a broad-based refinancing of mortgages guaranteed by the two GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in an effort to reduce payments by those borrowers who currently cannot refinance either due to negative equity in their homes or due to their own credit constraints.

With all that is going on in our industry it is imperative that the servicing community at large pays particular attention to vendor selection. We are hearing that “bigger" may not always be “better”. The teaming approach, whereby smaller more nimble service providers who can listen to the challenges of the servicer and propose a solution that encompasses more than just one provider may be the way of the future.

Commercial banks are likely to lose the equivalent of 90% of the loan loss reserves they have set aside for commercial real estate loans, according to a new report from Deutsche Bank.

Lewis S. Ranieri, who helped pioneer conventional mortgage-backed securities in the early 1980s, is proposing a fix for the nation's housing mess.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hiked their guarantee fees in 2010, but the 10 largest seller/servicers to the GSEs continued to pay lower G-fees than their smaller competitors, according to a new report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.