Servicing

Given the high expectations, and long wait, surrounding the Obama administration's proposal to create a new housing finance system, it was likely inevitable that it would disappoint. Critics said the plan was tepid, scant on key details and, in the words of Sen. Richard Shelby, "lacked a sense of urgency."

Deutsche Bank filed an S-3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue a commercial mortgage-backed security deal.

The National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions is exploring whether a federal bond program could be used as a funding source for long-term assets and to bolster secondary capital for Community Development Financial Institutions.

There was a 21% increase in homes valued at $1 million or more sold in California in 2010 over the previous year, according to DataQuick Information Systems, La Jolla, Calif.

The White House wants to extend the tax deductibility of mortgage insurance payments by consumers.

Bad: When a newspaper ridicules your CEO for wrongful foreclosures.Worse: When the foreclosure was initiated by another company.

In several different venues Friday morning, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended the administration's decision not to offer a full-fledged plan for the future of the housing market, insisting that Congress had only asked for an array of options.

Mortgage servicing may be changing and self-adjusting into a new still-not completely undefined model, but the fact that it appears to be a work in progress is not discouraging bankers from eyeing what it has to offer.Without much fanfare the crisis has irreversibly turned in-house mortgage servicing and specialty servicing into hot markets.

Federal Reserve Board Gov. Sarah Bloom Raskin believes the mortgage servicing industry needs to overhaul its practices and be more accountable, delivering the central bank's toughest words to date on the subject.

As the "third" housing GSE, the Federal Home Loan Bank System also is slated for downsizing under the Obama administration's plan for restructuring the residential finance system.