Servicing

New home sales slid 8.1% in October from the previous month but some are forecasting that builders will see a rebound in sales next near.

Mortgage application volume increased by 2.1% over last week on a seasonally adjusted basis, as a gain in purchase applications to their highest level since spring more than made up for a decline in refinance applications to their lowest point since the start of the summer, according to new figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Interactive Mortgage Advisors LLC, Denver, is selling a $225 million package of Fannie Mae residential loan bulk mortgage servicing rights for an undisclosed seller. The bid deadline is Dec. 7.

Fannie Mae issued nearly $70 billion in mortgage-backed securities in October -- its highest since the 2009 refinancing boom fueled by Federal Reserve purchases of agency MBS.

The federal interagency foreclosure task force that has been examining the largest mortgage servicers has been given a broader mandate by the new Financial Stability Oversight Council that held its second meeting on Tuesday.

CoreLogic reports that there is a “growing area of suspicious activity” in real estate owned sales, and the REO market represents a larger risk to the mortgage industry than short sales.

While widespread foreclosures have resulted in the flood of real estate owned properties for sale on the market depressed housing prices over the past three years, analysts at Credit Suisse project the recent slowdown in completed foreclosures brought on by robo-signing-related foreclosure moratoria will result in even greater decreases in home sales in 4Q10.

HomePath, Fannie Mae’s real estate owned sales division, launched a new feature on its website to allow real estate agents to submit offers for properties listed for sale, receive confirmations and track the status of submitted offers, all over the Internet.

Moody's Investors Service Tuesday afternoon downgraded its ratings on 272 tranches of payment option ARM MBS issued by Countrywide Financial Corp. In total, $19.1 billion of securities are affected.

Virtual staff and online offices that build business connections through the cloud are a staple of the modern marketplace. The lure is in the real and imagined cost savings, which some management consultants say will be there only if things are done right.The urge to handle mortgage servicing capacity shortages is pushing many lenders and servicers to use or at least consider either third-party service providers or new locally based virtual staff.