Mortgages

Morgan Stanley & Co. this week took bids on its residential servicing division, Saxon Mortgage, Ft. Worth, Texas, which holds $28 billion of contracts on its books, according to M&A officials.

Further European concerns by around noon on Friday had brought the rate-indicative 10-year Treasury yield back down near record lows seen earlier in the week and had had a somewhat mixed effect on industry stocks, some of which fared relatively well considering the Dow had dropped more than 300 points.

The size of the economic lift from any program to streamline refinancings is debatable, but the plunge in interest rates is already fattening mortgage production revenues.

PHH Corp., Mt Laurel, N.J. is the only independent mortgage loan servicer that can internally generate new unpaid principal balances for its platform and thus its loan production unit can generate MSRs at a discount compared to the cost to purchase them, an analyst for Sterne Agee said.

The presentations of three national title insurance underwriters at the Keefe Bruyette & Woods insurance conference held on Wednesday concentrated on the importance of focusing on profitability in the current real estate market, analyst notes said.

MGIC is in discussions to sell its eMagic unit as well as its Myers Internet business, a company spokeswoman confirmed. The pair contributes minimal revenue to the company and it has made a strategic business decision to try and divest them, she said.

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Freddie Mac said it will not dramatically discount its backlog of foreclosed homes, arguing that such steep price cuts could destroy the housing market.

The Senate Banking Committee last this week approved a bi-partisan bill to reform the National Flood Insurance Program, extending it out for five more years.

Although President Obama Thursday night made a slight reference to a government-backed refi plan for troubled mortgagors, the effort appears to be temporarily stalled over concerns about what effect it would have on both MBS investors and the megabanks, according to advisors and trade group sources who claim to have knowledge of the program.

American Realty Capital Properties, New York, sold almost 5.6 million shares of stock for proceeds of nearly $70 million in its initial public offering. The common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market as of 3 p.m. on Sept. 7. The offering priced at $12.50 per share.

As federal funds for credit counseling dry up Wells Fargo & Co. is channeling $12.4 million to counsel distressed borrowers, increasing this year's commitment to national and local counseling agencies by 35%.

GNMA president Ted Tozer has a problem and it goes like this: over the past 18 months the agency has approved 60 new firms to issue government-backed mortgage securities, but few are actually issuing. He'd like to change that.

Americans are expressing their highest levels of pessimism regarding the housing market and the economy in general, according to Fannie Mae's August National Housing Survey.

Continuing economic uncertainty contributed to fixed-rate mortgages falling to their lowest interest rate levels ever, according to the latest Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

Jane C. King, the Queen of renovation lending, will head up Platinum Home Mortgage Corp.'s new correspondent lending division as division vice president.

Accenture plans to acquire Dallas-based outsourcing and fulfillment firm Zenta, a move that adds new mortgage industry-related capabilities, licenses and technology to the global consulting and outsourcing firm's portfolio.

Clear Capital reported a 4% quarter-over-quarter increase in home prices through the end of August, but the firm is projecting a bumpy future for the fall and winter seasons.

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Congress wanted to create a large category of high quality residential mortgages that would be exempt from risk retention and easily securitized – but banking regulators have taken the opposite approach, according to Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.