Servicing

Nara Bancorp sold a $61 million pool of troubled commercial mortgages to Garrison Investment Group of New York for about 63 cents on the dollar.

Large banks are agreeing to give local governments and nonprofit groups the ability to buy foreclosed homes before they are sold to private investors, according to a report in the Associated Press.

MetLife Bank plans to officially launch its new warehouse lending division in the fourth quarter and is in the process of hiring between four and six additional staffers for the business.

Servicers may be missing out on mortgage technology advances of the past few years due to capacity pressures and HAMP compliance challenges.

Mortgage bankers originated $25.9 billion of Federal Housing Administration-backed mortgages in July, down nearly 2% from June, according to new figures released by the agency.

At least one expert sees Section 702 of the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act as a "grossly underutilized" strategy that could minimize homeowner abandonment and neglect.

Commercial and saving banks originated $133.8 billion of single-family loans using the retail channel in the second quarter, a 10% increase from the prior period, according to new figures released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has charged Coppell, TX-based American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc., the nation’s largest independent subprime servicer, with allegedly “using illegal debt collection tactics and improperly misleading struggling homeowners."

The news remains ugly. Foreclosures are still the topic of the day, although now we're focused on "short sales." But the underlying question is the same: The house is worth less than the debt. What should we do?

Everyone knows that short sales have gone through the roof, tripling over the last couple of years and providing more grist to the unlikely alliances of lenders and Realtors that have sprung up to handle them.