Top Five Servicers See Market Share Soar

The nation's top five residential servicing firms, as a group, now control almost 67% of all housing debt in the U.S., another sign that consolidation in the struggling industry is rampant, according to exclusive survey figures collected by National Mortgage News. The group of five < Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase Home, CitiMortgage and Residential Capital Corp. < owned $6.513 trillion in servicing rights at year-end, a 27% increase from the same period 12 months earlier. At year-end 2008 the top five had a combined market share of 66.94%, compared to 55.93% 12 months earlier. Twelve months prior to that, the five had a 52.92% share, which might have indicated that consolidation was not picking up much speed. (For the complete story and rankings see the print edition of National Mortgage News.)