Servicing

The Dayton City Commission of Ohio recently approved a pilot program through which the Citywide Development Corp. and Wright-Patt Credit Union will leverage $2.1 million of federal grants obtained under last year's federal stimulus bill to provide low-cost funding for the redevelopment of foreclosed homes and abandoned properties.

As loan officers who don't meet the requirements drop out of the industry, the result could be a shortage of people to take applications -- at a time when demand for refinancings is historically high.

GSE foreclosure starts are accelerating along with HAMP cancellations, with most of the increase and volume concentrated in the six-plus month delinquent category, according to a new report from Lender Processing Services, Jacksonville, Fla.

Almost 26% of consumers have FICO scores below 600, an increase from the past two years and a reading that indicates it could be next to impossible for these borrowers to get a new mortgage.

The mortgage insurance unit of Genworth Financial lost $40 million in the second quarter, a marked improvement from the same period last year when it spilled $134 million of red ink.

A high ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee wants to explore ways of recouping the cost of placing the government-sponsored enterprises into conservatorships.

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.