Servicing

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors is endorsing legislation that could help restart the securitization market for small commercial mortgages held by community banks.

Capstead Mortgage Corp., an MBS-investing REIT, saw its second quarter earnings fall 59% in the second quarter to $29.8 million, citing "sharply higher portfolio runoff" caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buyouts.

The PMI Group's second quarter loss of $150.6 million, while improved over the same period in 2009, was still a surprise as analysts predicted the company should be able to pare those losses further. The company had a $222 million loss one year ago.

Of the 1.3 million inspections field service vendor Safeguard Properties conducts monthly on a nationwide basis, between 20%-28% of presale properties become vacant before they are even referred to foreclosure."The borrower, for some reason or another, just decides they are out," said Robert Klein, chairman of the board and founder of Safeguard Properties, during the Mitigation REO Losses panel at the SourceMedia Second Annual Best Practices in Loss Mitigation Conference in Dallas.

Every servicer and lender has an in-house servicing platform that measures major compliance milestones. But in today's environment that's not enough to tackle the ever-changing legislation that is constantly coming their way, according to Chris Saitta, president of Equator."It's really that granularity of the day-to-day decisions and day-to-day process bifurcated by which portfolio the property is in and which investor and which [mortgage insurance] company. It's a very complex decision process so you need a technology that can get into the granularity of automation."

Fraudsters in today's mortgage market are "quite entrepreneurial," coming up with new ways to scheme against borrowers, according to speakers at the SourceMedia Second Annual Best Practices in Loss Mitigation Conference in Dallas.The beginning of foreclosure rescue fraud starts typically when a servicer publishes a public notice concerning the homeowner. In a modification scheme, they offer a "modification for money and they never deliver."

Roughly 22% of consumers who refinanced their first liens in the second quarter also used the opportunity to pay down their mortgage, according to new figures released by Freddie Mac.

The Advertising Council, in partnership with the Department of the Treasury and Department of Housing and Urban Development, is launching a national advertising campaign to encourage homeowners struggling with their monthly mortgage payments to learn about the Making Home Affordable Program.

Wanigas Credit Union, Saginaw, Mich., was granted $384,000 from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis to help finance homeownership in foreclosed homes.

Mark Linne of Appraisal World feels the appraising profession he embraced 27 years ago is at a crossroads.

He compares it with how travel agents may have felt when virtual travel agents like Expedia or Travelocity started operating their Internet-only businesses.

"In the course of just a few brief years the whole profession changed." For appraisers it is a mix of challenges that include technology, changing regulation, a very severe economic downturn, even loss of credibility from banking clients.