Servicing

A group of funds managed by Boston-based Highfields Capital Management increased its stake in mortgage technology and services vendor Lender Processing Services to 5.2% of common stock, according to new documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

To clear up mortgage ownership issues quickly, banks and servicers should set up a multi-billion dollar fund to pay homeowners who are willing to accept their ownership of the mortgage note, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Sheila Bair.

When it comes to the business of mortgage servicing now may not look like the best time to jump in.

The Treasury Department late Friday issued its first ever scorecard on HAMP second lien modifications, noting that from April of last year to February, servicers restructured 17,000 junior liens.

Only a "small fraction" of the nation's 3,000-plus counties will be impacted when the formula that determines the conforming loan limit changes in October, according to an analysis by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

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.