Servicing

Ah, the morning after a bitter split. Late yesterday Brian Moynihan of Bank of America walked into Fannie Mae's bedroom and told that secondary market hussy that the marriage was over. "No more loans for you," Moynihan shouted as he left the boudoir, suitcase in hand and a one-way ticket to Virginia where his new best friend, Freddie, awaited. (Okay, I made that part up but you get the drift.)

Depositories unloading real-estate-owned properties face some tough choices, such as whether to auction off homes or sell them to investors, and whether to fix them up first. But whatever they decide, the real challenge is to avoid dragging down property values from their already-depressed 25% to 30% discounts.

Launched a few months back, the correspondent lending division of American Home Mortgage Servicing is approaching a monthly run-rate of $500 million and could wind up buying upwards of $6 billion in product by the time its fiscal year ends in September.

Financial marketplace rhetoric is unique and foreign to most outsiders who may have a newfound curiosity about the mentality and the jargon of Wall Street. After all, there is not much dispute about the role of mortgage-backed securities' traders in triggering the housing foreclosure crisis.

How anxious are residential lenders and servicers about the new levels of regulation and compliance they are being subjected to? The answer is: plenty nervous.

Maryland is developing a pilot program to take its mandatory foreclosure mediation process paperless.

Home prices rose in 27 states during the fourth quarter as home values increased on GSE-related transactions during the final two months of 2011.

Ocwen Financial Corp., a major buyer of MSRs the past two years, earned $9.7 million in the fourth quarter, a slight decline from the same period a year earlier.

Radian Group, the nation's third largest mortgage insurer, posted a net loss of $122 million for the fourth quarter, an improvement from the $1.1 billion hit it took in the year ago period.

Even though the short sale market was slow to develop in 2011, there are many people within the mortgage industry that think 2012 could be the year of the short sale as delinquencies and foreclosures continue to be a major problem throughout the country.