Servicing

Freddie Mac's chief operating officer took to the blogosphere Monday, defending the mortgage giant's response to foreclosure-gate and called the renewed confidence and normalization of the foreclosure process a major stride in attaining a "true housing recovery."

Conceptually speaking, packing thousands of modified FHA loans into Ginnie Mae pools should reduce prepayment speeds. In fact, that’s what some Wall Street dealers were counting on, but it appears they bet the wrong way, and their securitization strategy backfired.

Repurchase requests from secondary market investors — including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — could end up costing banks a total of $43 billion through 2012, according to a recent report from Standard & Poor's.

House price appreciation may not be what it used to be, but most participants in the National Association of Realtors' annual profile of buyers and sellers still believe home ownership is a sound investment.

Due out in eight days, the annual Federal Housing Administration actuarial review could point to the future role government will play in housing finance.

Fannie Mae took a loss of $1.3 billion for the third quarter, up slightly from $1.2 billion in the prior quarter as credit losses increased but revenue was higher.

In its first full quarter as a standalone company, CoreLogic reported a net loss of $93.4 million, the result of a $174 million impairment charge related to its employer and litigation services businesses. It took in revenue of $484.3 million.

Even with quantitative easing in place, the extent to which borrowersrespond to a given rate incentive may have peaked in the most recentprepayment report, according to researchers.

The National Credit Union Administration plans to offer another $5.48 billion of guaranteed notes next week, its third offering over the past month of bonds created from the cash flows of MBS owned by failed corporate credit unions.

Redwood Trust, the only company to securitize jumbo loans during the past two years, has pushed backed its second deal to early 2011 because of a lack of available product.