Servicing

A Freddie Mac Reference Bills auction delayed Friday in anticipation of Hurricane Irene moved forward Monday morning as the weather cleared and mortgage-related securities markets opened on schedule.

The Government National Mortgage Association said late Friday that it is expanding the parameters for loans to be repurchased from its trusts to include those that have successfully completed a three-month trial payment period.

A rare public rebuke of a rogue attorney general by his colleagues has highlighted the dysfunction among the state AGs and raised doubts about their ability to strike a settlement deal with the nation's largest mortgage servicers.

In recent weeks Bank of America has been telling analysts and shareholders that it is actively selling mortgage servicing rights while offering little, or no, details on what exactly it unloaded – and at what price.

Pro-active housing policies may be needed to spur a recovery in the housing sector, according to Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke.

It will take less time than previously expected for the housing market to clear the supply of distressed homes on the market, but that so-called shadow inventory will still be around for nearly four years, Standard & Poor's Rating Services said last week.

The largest state organization of real estate professionals in the country has urged the mortgage community to improve the short-sale process, suggesting, among other things, that they set realistic time frames in which to make their decisions and then stick to them.

Despite my years of involvement within the mortgage and financial services industries, perhaps the most profound lesson about mortgage banking that I ever learned occurred when I signed a mortgage of my own several years ago. It was about 15 pages long. Right before I signed it, the closing agent looked at me and said, "Do you know what this document means, Rob?"

Federally insured problem loans may soon turn into the new delinquency superstars to replace the mortgages originated at the peak of the home price bubble which, according to insiders, are slowly passing through the system despite procedural and litigation stumbling blocks.

A U.S. District Court judge in Oregon issued a pair of rulings in favor of Merscorp subsidiary Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., but it remains unclear how those rulings will impact MERS' appeal of a third case where a second federal judge vacated an Oregon borrower's nonjudicial foreclosure.