Servicing

Home builders and Realtors are urging Republican leaders on the House Financial Services Committee to postpone action on eight GSE bills, claiming this could impede a recovery in the housing market.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would clarify the authority of the U.S. bankruptcy courts to run mediation programs that facilitate negotiations between struggling homeowners and servicers to prevent foreclosures.

Certain of the nation's megaservicers have agreed to sign a modified consent order with Federal regulators as part of a first step to inking a final settlement between the industry and 50 state attorneys general, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

As developments like the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s plan to gradually and competitively sell nonagency residential mortgage-backed securities from the “bailout” period into an improved market suggest, it looks like we’re starting to put the recent downturn behind us in some respects.

Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc., Irvine, Calif., saw its year-over-year earnings increase by more than 200% to $10.3 million for 2010 as it returned to the loan origination business during the third quarter of the year.

The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac warned Thursday that congressional proposals to clamp down on the two government-sponsored enterprises could put taxpayers at greater risk.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency on Thursday admitted that it has contemplated allowing the GSEs to unload their nonperforming and modified loans in the secondary market, but at this time has no plans to act on it.

Ally Financial Inc. has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering to sell common stock held by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

The cure/default ratio for the nation's private mortgage insurers was 112.2% in February, the first time there has been more new cures than defaults since May 2010, according to data collected by the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York plans to begin more extensive salesof the nonagency residential mortgage-backed securities in its Maiden Lane II LLC portfolio into an improved market for the bonds, turning down AIG’s offer to buy back the securities.