Mortgages

Nationstar Mortgage, Lewisville, Texas, is contemplating making a bid for Bank of America's correspondent lending division, or at least parts of it, according to industry advisors who claim to have knowledge of the matter.

The housing market could be picking up a slight head of steam, but only in selected markets, according to the Federal Reserve's new 'Beige Book' report.

As if there were not enough considerations for investors sizing up the many distressed mortgage asset-backed securities still out there, it looks now like they should also take into account growing momentum in municipal efforts to get securities trusts and servicers to pay for distressed property upkeep or face fines.

As settlement talks continue between the states and the megabanks over the robosigning scandal, some of the nation's largest servicers fear they may have a new item to add to their worry list: civil liability tied to the monthly processing of Federal Housing Administration loans.

The Collingwood Group Wednesday announced that it has hired industry veteran Tom Cronin as a managing director of the firm.

The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency is scheduled to sell $81.4 million of single-family mortgage revenue bonds on Thursday after a one-day retail period.

Some struggling development districts around Omaha have turned to Chapter 9 bankruptcy as a way to restructure debt as they wait out an ailing housing market.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is pushing back against claims that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were sophisticated investors that should have done a better job of vetting their purchases of mortgage-backed securities.

A New Jersey mortgage broker has been charged with submitting false information to qualify for 13 multifamily loans with the help of a loan coordinator at Paragon Federal Credit Union, Montvale, N.J.

With unemployment rates remaining at high levels and foreclosures continuing to be a prominent problem nationwide, real estate analysts have suggested that borrowers should consider a loan modification to prevent them from losing their property.

For the third time in the last four months, Trepp said the delinquency rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities has dropped.

As the summer home buying season winds down, auction companies are continuing to sell distressed properties in September.

With the support of more than 16,000 Americans, a Seattle homeowner was able to prevent Bank of America from issuing a foreclosure notice on her property.

Reverse Mortgage Solutions is the latest reverse mortgage lender to step into the void created when two of the largest lenders of this product pulled out of the market. The Houston-based originator and servicer of Home Equity Conversion Mortgages is starting a wholesale production channel for these loans.

Although mortgage rates continue to test new all-time lows, applications took a tumble last week, a sign that consumers continue to be spooked by uncertainty in the overall economy.

Many of the country's largest banks received $6 billion in kickbacks from mortgage insurers over the course of a decade, according to a previously undisclosed investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

MBS issuers have long enjoyed an exemption from onerous provisions of the Investment Company Act since the start of mortgage securitization in the early 1980s, but all that could change under a new proposal being weighed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A government streamlined refinancing program that would reduce monthly mortgage payments for a large number of borrowers appears more likely while insiders fret over its future cost burdens on borrowers, the government and investors.

Just like their peers in distress, borrowers with disposable income also favor one-on-one banking. Bank of America started implementing the face-to-face approach, so far deemed the most efficient foreclosure prevention tool in the market, to advise customers with $50,000 to $250,000 in "investable assets."

Wells Fargo & Co. has invited 9,500 distressed customers to a two-day Home Preservation workshop scheduled for Sept. 8 and 9 in Atlanta, the city where it introduced one of the bank's first foreclosure prevention workshops in 2009.