Servicing

Mortgage servicers signed off on 27,840 new permanent HAMP modifications in September, down nearly 17% from the previous month, and a sign that the White House's signature foreclosure prevention program is losing steam.

Some large banks sold fewer mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the third quarter, using them to manage interest rate risk and to slow the contraction of loans.

When times are tough, consumers, increasingly, are paying their credit card bills first and worrying about the mortgage later.

Home prices began to sag again in August as 17 of the 20 cities in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller house price index posted month-to-month declines.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage may be under siege in some quarters, but not at the Mortgage Bankers Association convention in Atlanta, where it was defended as on par with motherhood and apple pie.

The robo-gate fiasco is more about faulty internal processes on the part of overwhelmed loan servicers than it is with the securitization of mortgages, a panel of key secondary market executive agreed at the Mortgage Bankers Association's convention in Atlanta. They also said the quicker lenders and investors address the problem, the better off they'll be.

Fears of undetected financial reporting fraud feeding into “foreclosure-gate”-type concerns are bringing together insiders worried about their industry’s future.Financial reporting supply chain representatives agree that increased collaboration and communication among industry participants “can greatly advance efforts to lessen fraud risk.”It was the main finding of a new report based on input from an industrywide roundtable discussion organized by the Center for Audit Quality in Washington.

The nationwide frenzy over foreclosure moratoriums and servicer accountability is worrying investors about the cost of unintended consequences.The Association of Mortgage Investors said it supports a mortgage industry practices reform that will ensure responsible parties are held legally accountable.

A lawsuit is bringing the spotlight on how lack of loan servicing transparency that ensures open in-house exchange of data and communication between departments can cause losses.Filed by a group of homeowners it claims Aurora Loan Services LLC reaped $100 million from delinquent homeowners promising to modify their loans but instead had their properties foreclosed with little or no notice.

Home prices fell 1.5% August compared to a year ago, according to the newly released CoreLogic house price index, which registered it first annual decline this year.