Mortgage defaults

Home BancShares in Arkansas would rather buy banks that meet its financial parameters than do one large deal to catapult over $10 billion in assets. The bank also spent most of this year idling with M&A so it could prepare for stress testing.

Moody's Corp. said federal officials are planning a lawsuit over its ratings of residential mortgage securities that critics contend were inflated to win business in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.

Mortgage Contracting Services has acquired title insurance and settlement services provider Lenders Title Solutions.

Fluctuations in home price and wage gains have created a volatile outlook for housing affordability across the country. By better deciphering market data, mortgage companies can hone their strategies to respond to prevailing economic trends.

New American Funding and Alterra Home Loans have selected Radian Group as the preferred private mortgage insurance providers for their Your Path loan program.

Condominium associations cannot afford to take on the potential legal risk that reporting delinquent borrowers to the credit bureaus would bring.

Foreclosure filings dropped to the lowest level reported since December 2005, signaling the end of the country's foreclosure crisis, according to Attom Data Solutions.

Servicers have long skimped on technology investment, leaving legacy systems that can't keep pace with compliance demands. But rising costs and a new round of regulations are compelling both servicers and vendors to finally address these deficiencies.

Fannie Mae said that it will sell 7,300 loans with a total of $1.39 billion in unpaid principal balance.

The number of completed foreclosures nationwide in August dropped 42% from a year earlier, according to CoreLogic.

Fannie Mae plans to sell a pool of 3,600 loans with $806 million in unpaid principal balance.

Companies in the path of the storm have battened down the hatches, as others have prepared for the impact the hurricane could have on home sales and loan servicing in the weeks to come.

It's been a tough year for farmers, and lenders are looking for ways to help those borrowers offset sagging income.

The 1.35% delinquency rate was the lowest since at least 2001, and it marked nearly four years of delinquencies below the 15-year average of 2.21%.

With the myriad home price indices available to the mortgage industry, it's difficult to determine which offers the most cost-effective insights about a particular market. Granularity is a key selling point, but not a one-size-fits-all solution.

More than $200 billion of the most poorly underwritten commercial mortgages originated before the financial crisis come due this year and next, many of them still underwater.

U.S. Bancorp has agreed to settle a lawsuit that claimed it neglected to maintain foreclosed properties in Southern California after the 2008 financial crisis.

Late payments on securitized commercial mortgages reversed course in September and resumed a climb that began in March, according to Trepp.

Walter Investment Management Corp. subsidiary Ditech Financial has paid $1.4 million as part of an agreement to settle claims of alleged abusive debt collection practices in Massachusetts.

Bank mortgage servicers are slashing their staff in the wake of improved loan performance and decreased portfolio, according to Fitch Ratings.