Servicing

Fannie Mae has declared war on so called "side agreements" that lenders have worked out with mortgage insurers to reduce their exposure to loan buybacks.

A pilot program designed to avoid Home Equity Conversion Mortgage delinquencies is gaining track among seniors in need of help at about the same time pending legislation calls for cuts of all funding for federally mandated reverse mortgage counseling.The FY 2011 Continuing Appropriations Act (H.R. 1473)—scheduled to pass Congress in mid-April—would eliminate $88 million in HECM counseling funds.

Sandler O'Neill on Monday reduced its price target on Genworth Financial to $13 a share (from $15), citing problems with the company's mortgage insurance division.

Legacy private-label RMBS market participants should take note: junior bondholders in certain vintages of low-rated nonagency residential mortgage-backed securities have in some cases ended up with a payoff due to slow liquidation timelines, and a “rare” servicing transfer risk has surfaced, according to two recent rating agency reports.

JPMorgan Chase plans to sell a $1.5 billion B-piece offering to Torchlight Investors, according to a Bloomberg report.

To many in the industry, federal regulators just gave Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems a big stamp of approval.

As REITs emerge as a key source of agency MBS demand and become the marginal buyers for mortgage-backeds, spreads are still range-bound even though there is the news that the Treasury is unwinding its MBS portfolio, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts in a report released Friday.

Gramercy Capital Corp., New York, has received a second extension on the maturity date, this time for two weeks, from the lenders on $791 million in loans, in order to negotiate an orderly transition of the properties securing the loans to those lenders.

If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to be prohibited from purchasing mortgages tied to properties with private transfer fees, then the GSEs should create a database of these "hidden fees" fees to better protect lenders and consumers, according to the Consumer Mortgage Coalition.

A pair of the nation's largest mortgage servicing outfits are being eyed by a Seattle-based law firm for their practices regarding the use of forced-placed insurance.