Servicing

Lenore Albert, a plaintiff's lawyer in Huntington Beach, Calif., says the consent orders federal regulators recently issued against the largest mortgage servicers gave her "another tool" to fight foreclosures.

SunTrust Banks, Atlanta, had mortgage production and servicing income of $71 million for the first quarter, down 35% from the fourth quarter 2010 due to lower mortgage production volume and reduced gain on sales margins.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston this week filed a complaint seeking to rescind the purchase of nearly $6 billion of MBS whose collateral is underpinned by loans to homeowners with sketchy credit.

The residential mortgage banking business at PNC Financial Services Group Inc., Pittsburgh, earned $71 million in the first quarter 2011, up from $3 million in the fourth quarter 2010 but down from $78 million in the first quarter 2010.

Home prices fell 1.6% in February after a 1% dip in January as the GSE regulator's house price index hit yet another new low since values reached their peak in April 2007.

Not all mortgage lenders saw loan production fall off the table in the first quarter. Astoria Financial Corp., Lake Success, N.Y. funded $707 million of residential loans for its portfolio in 1Q, a 10% jump from 4Q.

Standard & Poor's late Wednesday revised its outlook on the unsecured debt issuances of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank System to "negative" from "stable" while maintaining their AAA credit rating.

The California law firm Kassas Law has started a prelitigation service to help homeowners who have trouble securing loan modifications from banks.

Hudson City Bancorp, one of the largest correspondent lenders in the Northeast, shed roughly $8.6 billion of MBS in the first quarter as it moved to reduce its interest risk at the demand of regulators.

The CBOE Futures Exchange and Radar Logic have agreed to develop and list tradable residential property futures.