Mortgages

Until recently, the deterioration of properties didn’t pique the interest of servicing agencies until it was clearly designated REO and, until recently, this was all well and good. But the winds have changed.

Standard & Poor's reported Tuesday morning that home prices fell in February for the sixth consecutive month to the lowest level since 2002.

Although the Government Accountability Office gave the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. its stamp of approval for 2010 and 2011 financial statements, the watchdog yet again said that the FDIC had overestimated the cost of certain of loss-sharing deals.

Don Curtis, vice president of business development for Carrrington Mortgage Services, Santa Ana, Calif., has left the company.

A joint initiative has been formed between three prominent national housing organizations whose focus is to support homeownership across the country by rehabilitating vacant real estate owned properties.

Eagle Bancorp, Bethesda, Md., originated and sold off more residential mortgages in the first quarter, which helped boost profits by almost 49%, to $7.6 million, from a year earlier.

A $20 billion package of residential mortgage servicing rights being offered by Bank of America has yet to trade even though the bidding ended about two weeks ago, according to investment bankers familiar with the deal.

The government's authority to issue new flood insurance policies expires at the end of May and the Federal Emergency Management Administration is urging Congress to pass a two-year extension of the National Flood Insurance Program.

Servicers are trying to determine the best strategy to reduce their portfolios of foreclosed/bank-owned properties, and renting them out to investors has become a popular play.

Just how healthy is the warehouse lending business today? The answer boils down to this: If you can't obtain a line of credit in the current market, then something must be wrong with your shop.

Randall Craig, a Toronto-based social media marketing expert, said marketing campaigns using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the like, can be measured through the following four approaches.

Only time can tell which of the new loan solutions to the housing crisis will eventually succeed, but the search is still on. And at least one option introduced by Carpe Aquam Capital LLC of Marlton, N.J., has already earned the attention of policy makers and bankers alike.

Fueled by record revenue from mortgage banking, Washington Trust Bancorp. in Westerly, R.I., reported a record $8.4 million profit in the first quarter, an increase of 24% over the same period in 2011.

The mortgage industry will be saddled with high legal costs if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau provides a low bar for attorneys to challenge a lender’s adherence to the bureau’s “ability to repay” underwriting standards, according to the Consumer Mortgage Coalition, which represents some of the nation’s largest banks.

The Agoura Hills, Calif.-based risk mitigation firm has integrated Google Maps satellite images into FraudGuard to help lenders decrease loan processing time and quickly identify external issues with properties.

Getting REO to market quickly can help optimize its selling value, but rushing the presale valuation process too much could prove counterproductive, according Carl Streck, principal at MountainSeed Appraisal Management.

PHH Corp. hired Robert Crowl as executive vice president, effective April 26, setting him up to eventually become the company’s chief financial officer.

Sometimes I go in circles. I do marketing, my phone rings, I get busy, I stop marketing. I close loans, I realize my phone isn't ringing as much so I start all over. My new goal is to go in a straight line.

BOK Financial Mortgage, a part of the Tulsa-based Bank of Oklahoma group, has been using an unusual correspondent lending strategy that has been gaining traction as bigger players have left or pulled back from the business.

Starting in January 2008 through August 2011, Menden admitted that he and a business partner, George Hranowskyj, conspired with Bank of Commonwealth insiders to purchase underperforming bank-owned properties in exchange for preferential lending treatment.