Servicing

A private-government partnership fund could assist “underwater borrowers” and actively engage small-size banks in national efforts to speed up the housing market recovery, according to a mortgage market veteran.

Although the banking industry had its best quarter since the start of the financial crisis, the number of depositories at risk of failing in 1Q accounted for nearly 12% of the sector – the highest reading in 18 years.

Columbia Credit Union, Vancouver, Wash., this week inked a deal with Security One Lending, allowing the CU to offer its customers reverse mortgages.

At the end of March mortgage companies were servicing just shy of $9.5 trillion in home loans, a 4% decline from a year ago, and a sign that foreclosures and ‘cash-in’ refinancings are continuing to play a key role in reducing residential debt.

The much-maligned Capital Purchase Program — better known as the bank bailout — is turning out to be a decent investment for the federal government.

When asked about when the still-struggling nonagency market might return, some market participants in New York for the Mortgage Bankers Association's National Secondary Market Conference even took on the controversial question of whether a subprime credit secondary market should come back some day.

Future losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be driven not by their operating results, but by the fact they must continue to pay the U.S. Treasury hefty dividends on the preferred stock the government owns in the two, according to a new report from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Freddie Mac is coming to market with a $538 million commercial MBS deal backed by 19 multifamily properties owned by Apartment Investment & Management Co.

Less than two years after it acquired Federal Trust Bank in Sanford, Fla., so it could qualify for a federal bailout, insurance giant Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. is selling the thrift to another Florida banking company.

Distressed home sales in California accounted for 48% of all purchase transactions in April, a three-point decline from the prior month, according to new figures compiled by the California Association of Realtors.