Servicing

A group of House Financial Services Democrats are raising questions about whether taxpayers will be fully protected under the terms of a recent settlement over poorly underwritten loans held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As the backlog of foreclosures continues to drive down housing values, losses on private label MBS will increase in 2011, according to a new report from Moody's Investors Service.

Experts predicting a better year for the mortgage market foresee more of a status quo situation when reviewing the foreclosure inventory, especially in states like Florida and Nevada, which are not expected to see their real estate owned property books shrink any time soon—at least not in the next couple of years.

Real estate owned properties are on everybody’s mind, and this book of business is raising concerns about how long it will take for the REO inventory to be absorbed by the marketplace.The volume of properties going through the foreclosure process is staggering. As more foreclosures continue to add to the existing inventory it seems to be no end in sight to the crisis in the near future.

Merrill Lynch Credit Corp. has renewed its private label production and servicing agreement with PHH Mortgage, Mt. Laurel, N.J., according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Even when it is obvious that a specific business strategy makes perfect logical sense, it becomes far more convincing when data confirm its value as well.The National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program is one case in point. For homeowners who work with an NFMC counselor, “the odds of curing a foreclosure” are 1.7 times higher than for homeowners who do not.

Amherst Securities Group this week hired three mortgage industry veterans to expand its sales division: Peter Davidson, Chris Heaney and Chris O'Neill.

Even though its core business is homebuilding, the problem loan business has been a profitable one for Lennar Corp. in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2010, which ended on Nov. 30.

Interest rates jumped, pipeline pressure fell, and profit margins on mortgage production appear to have retreated in the fourth quarter.

In November U.S. home prices declined for the fourth month in a row, a sign that housing markets are still on shaky ground, according to new figures released by CoreLogic, Santa Ana, Calif.