Servicing

The beginning of 2011 is showing positive signs in California as pending home sales increased in January by 13.6% from the previous month with an index of 93.6, according to the California Association of Realtors.

Inland Real Estate Brokerage & Auctions Inc. will be hosting an auction event on March 23 where multiple properties in South Chicago and Northwest Indiana will be up for sale.

When it comes to short sales, it seems that lenders come up short, at least in California.

Interactive Mortgage Advisors, Denver, is offering a $128.8 million package of bulk servicing rights tied to Freddie Mac loans that at the present time have no delinquencies whatsoever.

Fitch Ratings is likely to cut the insurer financial strength rating of Republic Mortgage Insurance Co. to junk status following a detailed review of the insurer’s performance. Fitch put RMIC on Rating Watch Negative status; it also downgraded the parent company Old Republic International as well as ORI's title insurance subsidiary.

Redwood Trust officials have been hearing plenty of talk about other firms entering the jumbo MBS space—but aren’t holding their breath about seeing new bonds issued anytime soon.

Default management technology vendor Indisoft will begin selling its software to federal agencies under the terms of a recently negotiated contract with the U.S. Government Services Administration.

Roughly 23.1% of all residential homes encumbered with mortgages (11.1 million units) were in a negative equity position at yearend, according to new figures released by CoreLogic, Santa Ana, Calif.

In what could be called the housing finance industry's version of "Scared Straight," a veteran regulatory attorney read the riot act to a group of industry executives in Las Vegas, warning them that the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can be expected to come down hard on mortgage firms that don't toe the line.

The 27-page term sheet handed to the five largest residential servicers last week is a detailed, dense list of requirements that, if implemented as proposed, would fundamentally change the relationship between servicers, investors and borrowers.