Servicing

Freddie Mac reported a 17% jump in refinancing volume from July to August and another monthly decline in single-family delinquencies.

Foreclosure starts continue to accelerate with the GSEs displaying more aggressive timelines on early stage delinquencies.

The National Credit Union Administration is seeking bids on about $800 million of commercial mortgage-backed bonds collected from U.S. Central FCU and WesCorp FCU, the opening efforts on its bid to securitize as much as $50 billion in troubled mortgage securities held by failed corporate credit unions.

Fannie Mae is offering seller assistance incentives on its bank-owned properties listed on the company’s REO website, while expanding the initiative to offer an incentive to real estate agents and brokers.

As the national foreclosure prevention campaign and other efforts have begun to mature, loan modification fraud is becoming more defined, increasingly falling into two categories.

Evidence of sloppy mortgage servicing practices should come as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the industry during the foreclosure crisis.

Mortgage vulture fund investor Wilbur Ross has agreed to invest several million dollars in The Capital Markets Cooperative, taking a minority interest in the firm, which caters to both depositories and nonbank residential lenders.

Mortgage servicers signed off on 33,300 permanent HAMP modifications in August — the lowest number of completed restructurings since December 2009 when the Obama administration's foreclosure prevention program was just getting off the ground.

Mary Lou Christy, who at one time led the mortgage-backed securities trading desk at Fannie Mae, has joined a number of former agency and government officials at The Collingwood Group, a Washington-based business advisory firm.

Bank of America has decided to merge its Home Loan Services affiliate in Pittsburgh, a subprime specialty servicer, into its main servicing operation.