The Mortgage Bankers Association this week released an updated proposal to establish multiple privately owned guarantors to promote competition in the marketplace. In the MBA’s blueprint, the guarantors would be organized as privately-owned utilities with a regulated rate of return. “The more market participants that compete...
A day after Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee delayed a vote on some of President Trump’s nominations by refusing to attend a confirmation hearing, Republicans used a parliamentary maneuver to push through a unanimous favorable vote on two of them. Mortgage industry observers were expecting positive votes this week from the committee on the nominations of Steve Mnuchin as the new head of the U.S. Treasury and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-AL, as the next U.S. Attorney General. However, Democrat members of the committee refused...
Real estate investment trust New Residential Investment Corp. has been quietly trolling for mortgage servicing assets the past year and snagged a big one this week when it agreed to buy $97 billion in agency rights from Citigroup. Now comes the hard part: incorporating the receivables into an already fast-growing portfolio and convincing regulators at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Ginnie Mae officials that it has both the management structure and the financial wherewithal to handle so much product. According to a tally from Inside Mortgage Finance, since early December New Residential has acquired...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week announced a Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act enforcement action against a nonbank lender that appears to reflect a traditional interpretation of the law’s anti-kickback provisions, while a flurry of new paperwork fell on its controversial legal battle with PHH Mortgage. The bureau this week brought a $3.5 million enforcement action against Prospect Mortgage, accusing the firm of illegal kickbacks for mortgage business referrals from real estate brokers, and in an unusual twist, a mortgage servicing operation. The CFPB said...
Nonbanks continued to grab a larger share of the mortgage servicing business during the fourth quarter of 2016, and the rapid emergence of investor servicers – firms that buy mortgage-servicing rights while tapping other firms to actually administer the pools – promises to bring more change. A new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis shows that nonbanks that ranked among the top 50 servicers increased their holdings by 6.9 percent during the fourth quarter. Depository institutions among the top 50 servicers reduced their holdings by 1.2 percent during the same period. With Citi, the sixth-largest servicer at the end of 2016, now in the process of selling a large chunk of its MSR assets – in some cases to investors that will use subservicers – the demographics of the industry will change...[Includes two data tables]
Not only did Citigroup shock the market this week with its decision to exit residential servicing operations, but the move could be the start of an eventual withdrawal from all mortgage banking. For now, the nation’s sixth-largest servicer – and 13th-largest originator – is strongly refuting such talk, but that isn’t stopping the industry from speculating on the megabank’s next move. “If they firmly believe they can’t make money in servicing and cross-selling, then this is...
When it comes to cashing out of large blocks of GSE common stock, sellers face the ‘Roach Motel’ syndrome: investors check, but can’t necessarily check out…
The "Lost Sales Analysis" product – licensed from its developer, Equifax – helps originators determine if applicants closed a mortgage with a competitor.
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