Servicing

Nationstar Mortgage and an affiliate company, Newcastle Investment Corp., have agreed to acquire roughly $63 billion in mortgage servicing rights from Aurora Bank FSB, a subsidiary of the bankrupt Lehman Bros.

Foreclosure sales outpaced loan modifications in January for the first time since October 2009, when the government's Home Affordable Modification Program was just a few months old and still gaining altitude.

Attorney general Kamala Harris signed off on the six proposed laws that could help consumers and communities cope with the state’s current foreclosure crisis. According to Harris, the six proposed bills would guarantee basic fairness and transparency for homeowners and improve the mortgage process for everyone.

MountainView Capital Group on Monday said it recently brokered the sale of 7,100 nonperforming second liens with an unpaid principal balance of $403 million.

If the U.S. economy needs more stimulus, resuming the Federal Reserve's mortgage-backed security purchase program "would probably be the best course of action," according to San Francisco Fed President John Williams.

The National Association of Federal Credit Unions told leaders of the Senate Banking Committee last week that the credit union industry, which is emerging as one of the most important players in the home loan market, is opposed to any mortgage reforms that would include elimination of the federal guarantee on loans sold on the secondary market currently through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Is outsourcing American jobs -- white collar jobs, no less -- evil? Is it a bad thing to set up a servicing acquisition company in the Caymans because by doing so you can avoid paying both income taxes to your executives and corporate income tax?

Commercial mortgage-backed securities special servicers have increased their activity over the past two months with roughly $3.7 billion in newly modified loans, according to an FTN Financial report.

Bond insurer MBIA Inc. reported losses in the fourth quarter of 2011. In a report released last week, MBIA said that it had an adjusted pre-tax loss of $252 million in the fourth quarter. That compares to an adjusted pre-tax loss of $311 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

PennyMac's Stanford L. Kurland has taken his share of criticism for helping to start the financial crisis. Now he is singing the praises of the government's latest attempt to fix it.