Servicing

Foreclosure-gate has highlighted long-standing flaws in the servicing process, but “larger problems” with the mortgage servicing business will require “serious” reforms, according to Federal Reserve Board governor Sarah Bloom Raskin.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s upcoming safe harbor rules could add to real estate investment trusts' relative advantage in the securitized nonagency residential mortgage space.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury as of midday on Monday had jumpedsignificantly to levels above 2.8% not seen since September.

Fannie Mae has opened a new mortgage counseling center in Phoenix that is part of a larger nationwide Fannie Mae effort to assist distressed homeowners who may be at risk of foreclosure because their loans are owned by the GSE.

The robo-signing mess is "extremely damaging" to the loan modification effort, a Treasury Department official said, because it confirms homeowners' feelings that they can't trust their servicers.

Joseph D’Urso is the new president at Green River Capital, a real estate owned asset management and loss mitigation provider for mortgage servicers, investment firms and banks based in West Valley City, Utah.

Walter Investment Management Corp., Tampa, Fla., has priced a private placement of residential mortgage-backed notes to be issued by Mid-State Capital Trust 2010-1. The offering consists of $135 million of notes secured by residential mortgage loans, building and installment sale contracts, promissory notes, related mortgages and other security agreements.

Flagstar Bank has closed on the sale of a $474 million portfolio of non-insured non-performing residential first mortgages.

Considered to be a deal broker and careful listener by those who have worked with him in the past, Joseph Smith is winning near-universal acclaim as President Obama's pick to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

While the investment opportunities in the nonagency residential mortgage-backed securities space are not what they were in 2008, there is still opportunity there, executives at an internally managed real estate investment trust investing in nonagency and agency RMBS told attendees at a REIT conference in New York.