It’s been a busy quarter for sales of mortgage servicing rights, but most of them have involved portfolios of $2 billion or less, spurring talk in the industry that regulatory oversight of MSR transfers is affecting the mergers and acquisition market. In particular, dealmakers are starting to call it the “Lawsky Effect,” named after Benjamin Lawsky, the superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services who in early February put a “hold” on Wells Fargo’s sale of $39 billion in MSRs to Ocwen Financial. Lawsky has stated his concerns about Ocwen’s fast growth, its capacity to take on massive new assignments and complaints about some of its servicing practices. “I have not heard...

FHA lenders reported $8.7 billion in new originations in January, down from $10.9 billion in December and $23.7 billion from a year ago. Most were fixed-rate mortgages and 77.1 percent were purchase transactions.

The mortgage market has gradually shifted upstream since the collapse of the housing market and the painstakingly slow recovery, with big-ticket mortgages capturing a growing share of new originations, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis. Mortgages exceeding the traditional conventional loan limit of $417,000 accounted for 19.8 percent of new originations in 2013, up from 16.2 percent during the previous year. And with overall mortgage-production volume slumping over the second half of 2013, the jumbo share of new originations rose to 23.3 percent in the fourth quarter. The secondary-market agencies accounted...[Includes three data charts]

Other firms had more of a jumbo focus. Second-ranked PHH Mortgage reported that 50.0 percent of its originations in 2013 were non-agency jumbos.

A number of lenders said they have put an increased emphasis on jumbo ARMs due to the rise in interest rates that started in May of 2013.

Not only is the spring home buying season beginning to show signs of life, so too is the M&A market for mortgage companies.

When conflicts of interest were unearthed, Aurora terminated the contract in 2012, leaving $28 million in unpaid bills. But Allonhill wanted its money.

The report, conducted by Alvarez & Marshall, was making the rounds in Washington Wednesday morning. John O’Neill, a managing director in the evaluation firm of Alvarez & Marsal, confirmed to IMFnews that his company conducted an evaluation on the GSEs for the Blackstone Group.

W.J. Bradley Mortgage Capital announced a number of new jumbo mortgage products this week. Among the offerings is a loan with a 10 percent downpayment requirement for balances of up to $850,000.

There has been talk in the market that JPM would unload some of its “high touch” MSRs this year, but so far brokers that play in the space have reported no scheduled auctions.