Servicing

Property preservation company Mortgage Contracting Services is currently tracking over 500 enacted code compliance related ordinances and disaster notifications.

These ordinances consist of city and state ordinances, including vacant property registration as well as FEMA disaster notifications.

One state law to note is the Colorado "fast track" foreclosure bill, which expedites the foreclosure process on vacant, abandoned properties.

Mortgage vendor CoreLogic, Santa Ana, Calif., on Wednesday unveiled its WillCap product, a decisioning system that can predict a distressed borrower's willingness and capacity to make mortgage payments.

President Obama Wednesday morning signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform bill, which will transform the regulation of financial services and the mortgage industry over the next three years as new rules are issued and implemented.

Drawn into the market by record low rates, refinancing applications are now at their highest level since last spring and are driving the increase in this week's Mortgage Bankers Association Market Composite Index.

Wells Fargo & Co. funded $81 billion of home mortgages in the second quarter, a 38% decline from the same period last year, but enough to best its top rival in home lending, Bank of America.

Mortgage Industry Advisory Corporation, New York, is selling a $1.66 billion bulk package of residential servicing rights collateralized by loans guaranteed by Freddie Mac.

HAMP servicers completed 51,200 permanent modifications in June, a 7% improvement from May, but also dropped a record 91,100 borrowers in payment trials from the program.

Steps forward in preserving homeownership combined with macro-market environment improvements suggest the future performance of mortgage loan modifications will depend more on differences in servicer-level performance, according to one forecast.

Servicing quality "will be increasingly important," Barclays Capital analysts said.

Industry examples such as SPS, Wilshire and NatCity modifications that have lower-than-average redefault rates, compared to Countrywide modifications that feature higher-than-average redefault rates illustrate that apprehension.

The expansion of the positive effect of government sponsored loan modifications into the non-governmentally sponsored modifications may also expand their impact --however marginal-- on the housing market recovery.

Insiders expect new expansions to the guidelines on modifications that are not sponsored by the Home Affordable Modification Program or other government options will help additional borrowers and the overall mortgage market.

Moody's analysts maintain these types of loan modifications, along with loss mitigation programs that preclude foreclosures can help preserve borrowers' credit scores and positively impact the housing market recovery in times when stricter credit requirement standards and lending criteria.

Mortgage Banking Solutions of Texas is launching a new service to help residential lenders fight loan buyback requests.