Servicing

Michael Buttner, most recently head of residential mortgage-backed securities for Wells Fargo Securities, has been named managing director of the unit's bank strategies group.

NovaStar Financial Inc., a former high flyer in the subprime mortgage originations business now pursuing the appraisal niche and others, reported net earnings of $457,000 for the second quarter, up from $256,000 one year prior.

Prices of single-family homes fell almost 3% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year with distressed transactions accounting for 33% of existing home sales, according to new figures compiled by the National Association of Realtors.

Reverse Mortgage Solutions, a Houston-based originator and servicer of FHA Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, is starting a wholesale production channel for these loans.

The Federal Home Loan Bank System is seeking an exemption from pending risk retention rules so they can continue to provide risk-sharing mortgage programs that they claim have exhibited "superior credit performance" for more than a decade.

Relatively favorable jobless claims and a rally in the stock market Thursday reversed the course of mortgage rates, causing them to bounce back from what Freddie Mac's latest weekly survey confirmed have been a record lows.

An Obama Administration official and a Seattle attorney squared off at the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators annual meeting in San Francisco, with one claiming that "dual track" servicing has all but ended but the other saying that's not the case, at least not in the Puget Sound area.

The warehouse commitment business is booming at People's United Bank of Connecticut which last fall hired industry veteran Paul Best from PNC Bank to run its operation.

Standard & Poor's this week placed thousands of publicly financed housing bonds with FHA guarantees on CreditWatch negative in response to its downgrade of the United States' long-term credit rating to AA+ from AAA.

Servicers believe that developing greater communication during the default resolution process is an integral aspect in order to reduce the number of foreclosures nationwide.