Servicing

Getting REO to market quickly can help optimize its selling value, but rushing the presale valuation process too much could prove counterproductive, according Carl Streck, principal at MountainSeed Appraisal Management.

PHH Corp. hired Robert Crowl as executive vice president, effective April 26, setting him up to eventually become the company’s chief financial officer.

Starting in January 2008 through August 2011, Menden admitted that he and a business partner, George Hranowskyj, conspired with Bank of Commonwealth insiders to purchase underperforming bank-owned properties in exchange for preferential lending treatment.

MGIC Investment Corp., the nation’s largest mortgage insurer in terms of policies-in-force, posted a $20 million loss for the first quarter, an improvement over the $34 million it dropped in the year-ago period.

More banks such as Puget Sound Bank, Umpqua Holdings and Wintrust Financial are reaching an inflection point for credit where bad assets are again a mere blip on the radar.

More light has been shed in the past week on two recent notable deals in mortgage-related securities markets and their potential ramifications.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency closed the $51.9 million-asset Fort Lee Federal Savings Bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. entered into a purchase agreement with Alma Bank in Astoria, N.Y., for $15.7 million of the failed thrift's assets.

Whole Loan Capital, LLC, New York, is in the market with a $4.8 billion 'flow' servicing deal that will be sourced through a handful of different lenders.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau poked its thumb in the eye of residential loan officers originating mortgages for depositories.

A delinquent loan currently takes approximately one year to become a foreclosure because of "extremely long" processing timelines, Sharga continued. Then, it takes anywhere from 500 to 700 days, depending upon whether the state is judicial or nonjudicial, for the foreclosure to become REO.