Loss mitigation

The Making Home Affordable program has been extended and expanded so many times that it's gotten hard to imagine life without it. But its two primary initiatives have served their purpose and the days may be numbered for HAMP and HARP.

Under the Federal Housing Finance Agency's new mortgage modification program, less than 1% of all seriously underwater properties might qualify for principal loan forgiveness, according to RealtyTrac.

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings reported a $132.4 million loss for the first quarter of 2016, showcasing once more the toll falling interest rates have taken on companies across the mortgage industry.

During the mortgage crisis, servicers recruited people from the origination business to help with loan modifications. Now the two sides of the industry are coming together in a new way.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to finalize its second round of mortgage servicing rules in July, a top agency official said. Laurie Maggiano, a program manager for servicing and secondary markets at the CFPB, also offered insights into the bureau's long-anticipated rulemaking on debt collection.

Even while FHFA finally embarked on a principal reduction plan, critics argued it was a dangerous idea that made Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac less safe while helping relatively few people.

FHFA Director Mel Watt acknowledged that the principal reduction program may seem "too small and too late."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's pending rule hinging on excessive document collection, when the focus should be on prohibitive privacy laws.

Fannie Mae is selling four large pools of nonperforming loans which have a total balance of $1.5 billion.

Banc of California in Irvine has agreed to sell its wholly owned investment adviser subsidiary, The Palisades Group.

Widows, divorcees and others who inherit or otherwise receive mortgaged property often have a hard time getting loans modified because there are too many hurdles to proving they own the property.

The government agency that guarantees securitizations of Federal Housing Administration-insured loans is experimenting with a pool type that consists only of modifications and reperforming loans.

Military families and service members are submitting debt collection complaints to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau at twice the rate of other consumers.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency appears poised finally to allow principal reductions, but it's been nearly a decade since the mortgage crisis and underwater borrowers are much fewer thanks to higher home values.

The agency may finally be reaching resolution on whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will allow principal reductions, two years into Director Mel Watt's tenure as agency director and nearly a decade after the mortgage bubble burst.

As servicers downsize their loss mitigation units, housing counselors are finding the companies' designated points of contact are less experienced, making it more difficult to get packages approved for troubled borrowers.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave $186 million to the National Housing Trust Fund, their first such contributions to a fund designed to provide construction and rehabilitation of rental housing for low-income families.

Zais Financial may shut down its business and liquidate its holdings if it can't a buyer or a merger partner.

Servicers are taking a much-needed hard look at the full range of customer touch-points that they operate, and NMN's 10th annual Mortgage Servicing Conference promises to offer an engaging agenda of hottest trends and topics.

The mortgage industry provided about 420,000 loan modifications last year to homeowners struggling to make payments, according to Hope Now.