Orange Capital is a private equity firm that has been gobbling up stakes in PHH Corp. over the past year. A few months back Inside Mortgage Finance first reported that PHH might be a takeover target.

The FHA allows low downpayments on loans that have credit scores as low as 580, but numerous lenders have established their own underwriting overlays to protect against poor performance.

According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance, Lau’s company, Pingora Loan Servicing, has amassed roughly $10 billion in MSRs in less than nine months.

The new service from Freedom Mortgage will handle all aspects of the mortgage transaction, from the initial customer call to closing and servicing of the loan.

The new ownership filing on Walter Investment comes at a time when short interest in nonbank mortgage firms is increasing.

Mark Mozilo, a principal in CALCAP, told IMFnews that he is seeing more competition in the hard money space.

One executive familiar with the practice of signing bonuses noted that typically the money is paid out over 12 months, but if the LO does not repeat their past performance the bonus can terminate in a given quarter.

It appears that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has slowed its search for a chief executive and chairman to manage the fledgling common securitization platform, which is slated to be headquartered in Bethesda, MD. One former candidate for the CEO position told Inside The GSEs: “It’s pretty much turned into the mess I suspected it would a year ago.” Discussing the chairman position, he added: “They still haven’t come to terms on compensation for the person they want.”

Credit Suisse late last week broke a two-month lull in jumbo MBS issuance, and JPMorgan Chase appears to be planning a new security. However, the jumbo MBS market is far from flourishing as other issuers continue to avoid the sector. Credit Suisse issued a $287.42 million jumbo MBS last week. CSMC Trust 2014-IVR1 received a AAA rating from DBRS with credit enhancement of 6.85 percent on the top-rated tranche. The deal had...

The new judge presiding over Bank of America’s $8.5 billion settlement with MBS investors this week countermanded, for the moment, last week’s approval of the deal by her predecessor, giving a major opponent of the agreement another chance to argue against it. New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla agreed to delay approval of the deal until at least Feb. 19 to hear American International Group’s appeal. Last week, Justice Barbara Kapnick approved the settlement agreement, except for loan modification claims, as one of her last acts before she took a promotion to the state’s Appellate Division. BofA agreed...