Servicing

In drafting risk retention rules, federal regulators should consider the impact capital and accounting requirements will have on issuers of private-label MBS, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Board.

Fannie Mae has filed suit against several insurers including Great American Financial Resources Inc. and The Travelers Cos., claiming they are responsible for losses on the $131 million the GSE paid for fraudulent mortgages it bought from U.S. Mortgage Corp. and its CU National Mortgage subsidiary.

Safeguard Properties, Valley View, Ohio, has promoted Michael Halpern to director of community initiatives where he will head up the REO field service company’s newly created government relations department.

On behalf of commercial banks, insurance companies and mortgage servicers, loan sale advisor DebtX plans to sell $1.1 billion in commercial real estate and residential loans in 10 separate transactions through early December.

The U.S. Treasury may have to shell out an additional $73 billion to $215 billion to keep the capital positions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from going negative, according to new loss projections released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Refinancings of single-family loans and demand for rental apartments picked up in September and early October, according to the Federal Reserve Board's periodic survey of economic conditions released Wednesday afternoon.

U.S. Bancorp, Minneapolis, reported record mortgage production of $16.6 billion for the third quarter, which contributed to a 12.3% increase in its mortgage banking revenue over the previous year.

The Cook County's Sheriff's office — the second largest sheriff's department in the U.S. — said it will not carry out any foreclosure evictions filed by Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, and GMAC/Ally Financial, until these servicers can "provide complete assurance that the foreclosure was done properly and legally."

Among more immediate implications of widely publicized foreclosure procedure concerns for some existing residential mortgage-backed securities at press time last week was the indemnity question, although there are several other developments to monitor.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development started a review of several FHA mortgage servicers during the summer, discovering what it calls "significant differences" in the way they handle defaulted borrowers in the loss mitigation process.