Servicing

Chicago-based @properties, an independent brokerage firm, has formed Institutional Services Group, a new division serving institutional clients that own or invest in REO properties, distressed real estate and foreclosures. ISG named Ralph Cram and John Staib as managing directors of the new division. The startup will offer a full range of services related to REO properties and distressed real estate investment in the Chicago area including brokerage, receivership, asset preservation, property management, consulting, development and investment-advisory services for the disposition or acquisition of mortgage notes, residential property and commercial property.

Trying to cut its losses, Bank of America has changed its policy on "short sales," making it easier for borrowers to sell their homes instead of going into foreclosure, according to a report in American Banker. Until a month ago, BoA's mortgage unit (which includes the old Countrywide franchise) had required that 10% of a home's sale price go toward paying off home-equity lines of credit before they would agree to a short sale. But Terry Francisco, a spokesman for the Charlotte-based lender, confirmed that the bank changed its policy last month, agreeing to accept 5% of the sale price when there is no equity available to holders of the first or second liens. The new policy "is based on the assumption that it is in the best interest of all parties involved to accept a short sale, as opposed to proceeding to a foreclosure," Mr. Francisco said. "We believed that the previous policies set an arbitrary amount that did not take into account the savings derived from proceeding with a short sale." The bank expects the change to increase the number of short sales.

In a sign that the bulk market for servicing rights could be heating up, Interactive Mortgage Advisors is auctioning off a $2.1 billion package of receivables for an undisclosed seller. Over the past few months the bulk market has been virtually dead with few of the mega-buyers willing to consider an investment except at rock bottom prices. The receivables — which include the rights to 18 delinquent loans — have a weighted average coupon of 4.95%. The loans have been purchased by Freddie Mac, which has been operating under a federal conservatorship since early fall. A majority of the loans are collateralized by homes in Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and Colorado. Final bids are due April 28.

The Mortgage Bankers Association plans to challenge a proposal that requires originators to have "skin in the game" when it testifies Thursday on Rep. Barney Frank's legislation to curb predatory lending practices. The bill, H.R. 1728, by the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee would require lenders to retain a minimum 5% economic interest in loans they sell on the secondary market. Such a provision would be a "huge call on capital," MBA president John Courson told reporters at the group's National Secondary Market Conference in Chicago. He said that it is unclear whether the Massachusetts Democrat means 5% of the loan amount, a 5% loan cap, a 5% share of the total loss, or 5% of the first loss. But anyway you look it, he said, the requirement represents a "total change of the landscape." Calling the proviso "premature," Mr. Courson said it "seem to be totally out of place with this particular piece of legislation" and should be debated as part of the discussion expected later this year to totally restructure the secondary market. "We will urge as aggressively as we can that this does not belong as part of an anti-predatory lending bill," the MBA president said.

Seven out of every 10 mortgages originated this year will be replacing loans already on the books, which means servicing "runoff" could accelerate dramatically, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.In his forecast to the MBA's Peer Group Roundtable and the Risk Management Association in Chicago, Jay Brinkman, the group's chief economist predicted that refinancings will more than triple in 2009, from a dollar volume of $765 billion last year to $1.925 trillion in 2009. The volume of purchase money mortgages, on the other hand, is expected to decline nearly 6%, from $855 billion in 2008 to $806 billion this year. Mr. Brinkman said "plain old refis" will total $1.5 trillion while ones done under a special Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac effort that include underwater loans will reach $400 billion. The number of purchase money loans will fall only 1%, the MBA economist said. But because of shrinking loan sizes, the dollar volume will be down 5.7%. Overall, the MBA is projecting a banner year for mortgage production, $2.73 trillion.

CitiMortgage has hired former Fannie Mae servicing executive Harold Lewis to head its Homeowner Assistance Program. He will officially join the bank-owned lender next Monday. According to an official at CitiMortgage, Mr. Lewis, while at Fannie, worked with the Obama administration to develop the GSE's new Making Home Affordable program, which is geared toward refinancing troubled as well as healthy borrowers. At Fannie he held the title of senior vice president of national servicing and was responsible for overseeing 1,400 GSE servicers.

The Federal Reserve Board has no particular exit strategy in mind when it comes to leaving the MBS market once it reaches the $1.25 trillion net purchase goal it set for 2009, said former FRB governor Randall Kroszner. Speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association's National Secondary Market Conference, Mr. Kroszner said the central bank will "do whatever it takes" to keep rates in check until the MBS market returns to some semblance of normalcy. For the most part, the central bank is now the secondary market for mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, having purchased more than $300 billion worth of the bonds in the first quarter. But the MBA is worried that when the Fed reaches its goal, its exit from the market will cause mortgage rates to shoot upward. Mr. Kroszner, who spent three years at the central bank before returning to the University of Chicago in January, said, "The real challenge is to thread the needle. Whether the Fed will purchase more or less will depend on the facts and circumstances at the time." If the central bank is satisfied by 2010 that the market is coming back, it will reduce it purchases, said Mr. Kroszner, who was a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors from 2001 to 2003, and "mortgage rates should rise at a normal pace."

In a sign that the bulk market for servicing rights could be heating up, Interactive Mortgage Advisors is auctioning off a $2.1 billion package of receivables for an undisclosed seller.Over the past few months the bulk market has been virtually dead with few of the megabuyers willing to consider an investment except at rock bottom prices. The receivables - which include the rights to 18 delinquent loans - have a weighted average coupon of 4.95%. The loans have been purchased by Freddie Mac, which has been operating under a federal conservatorship since early fall. A majority of the loans are collateralized by homes in Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Colorado. Final bids are due April 28.

Moves to encourage active and more innovative account management by servicers might bring federal efforts aimed at clearing the problem mortgage asset glut and restoring the nonagency secondary market closer to their goals, according to one Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary Market conference panelist. Clearing problem assets should be a priority and done quickly in order to restore the market, Jeremiah Buckley, partner at BuckleySandler LLP, told this publication. He told attendees at the Chicago meeting while speaking as part of a panel discussion on secondary market impacts of government relief programs, that he believes the mortgage industry may make more progress toward this end by taking a page from the credit card industry, which manages its unsecured borrowers' payments more closely and on a monthly basis. He and fellow panelist Tom Knox, managing director in PriceWaterhouseCoopers structured finance group, told attendees that efforts like TALF and PPIP that recently have taken steps toward helping revive the nonagency secondary mortgage market currently are too preliminary or vague when it comes to how ultimately effective they will be when it comes to reaching this goal.

VantageScore, the credit scoring algorithm developed by the three major credit repositories, has been integrated in Standard & Poor's Rating Services' Levels 6.6 mortgage analytical model. Levels analyzes a loan, or a pool of loans, and assigns a risk grade; it also determines foreclosure frequency, loss severity and credit enhancements required for securitization. A spokesman for VantageScore Solutions, the Stamford, Conn.-based company that holds the intellectual property rights to the algorithm, said that with S&P's approval, mortgage loans that were scored using VantageScore can now be included in pools analyzed by Levels. S&P managing director David Goldstein said VantageScore would provide banks greater flexibility by allowing Levels to be used as a risk management tool to monitor their mortgage loan portfolio. Previously, Fitch Ratings incorporated VantageScore into ResiLogic 2.1, its quantitative model that provides credit risk analysis at the individual loan and pool level for residential mortgage loans.