Servicing

New industry research confirms what servicers and loss mitigation specialists have been saying in recent months: demand for short sales is going through the roof.

All homeowners current on their mortgages need to be refinanced into a mortgage with a 4.5% interest rate to help the economy, said Ted Jones, the chief economist at Stewart Title.

Declines in new default notices, which were down on a year-over-year basis for the sixth straight month in July, are being offset by near-record levels of bank repossessions, and REOs continue to skyrocket compared to a year ago for the eighth straight month, according to RealtyTrac.

Austin Bergstrom International Airport's Hilton hotel faces a deepening financial hole in the wake of a series of defaults on $49 million of revenue bonds, according to a recent audit.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is awarding contracts to 23 companies to serve as asset managers and 32 other firms to serve as field service managers under the third generation of its management and marketing program, known as M&M III.

Fitch has made plans to review mortgage loan repurchases by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to see if they could affect the ratings of U.S. banks.

SMART Servicing, LLC, an affiliate of Steel Mountain Capital Management, is offering new software that provides the residential mortgage loan market with loan level information designed to help users control loss severity.

Freddie Mac has made plans to issue a new three-year dollar-denominated Reference Notes security and price it Thursday to settle Friday, Aug. 20.

Small banks and credit unions that rely on table funding to originate mortgages will be treated just like "mortgage brokers" under the new compensation rule issued by the Federal Reserve Board.