Servicing

Lower volumes and increased regulation are leading more lenders to consider outsourcing. But the savings and compliance improvements must outweigh increased liability for contractors and a rise in offshore prices.

Once written off as an endangered species, nonbank home lenders are making a comeback in the third-party origination businesses abandoned by banks since the financial crisis.

The rate of new foreclosures dropped to the lowest level in eight years as rising property prices erased negative equity and allowed more delinquent homeowners to sell without losing money.

The rapid growth and increasing regulatory scrutiny of nonbank mortgage servicers could "severely" affect the whole industry, Mortgage Bankers Association Chairman-Elect Bill Cosgrove says.

The volume of complaints lodged by distressed borrowers to four of the largest U.S. banks has stabilized, the monitor for the national mortgage settlement says.

"Servicers now face compensatory fees, not for mistakes or unreasonable delays, but simply as the cost of doing business," Mortgage Bankers Association President David Stevens says.

Steven Antonakes, the CFPB's deputy director, gave a speech which indicated the agency has shifted to a hard-line stance regarding compliance with a new mortgage servicing rule that went into effect last month. 'Business as usual has ended in the mortgage servicing industry,' he said.

A trend of fewer homeowners refinancing their mortgages as interest rates climb is helping to curb sales of home-loan bonds without government backing.

Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital is teaming with two other single-family rental-home landlords to offer as much as $1 billion in loans to similar operators this year, said three people with knowledge of the agreement.

Platinum Data Solutions has completed an initial round of accuracy testing on the 18 automated valuation models that it resells to lenders and servicers.