The Democrat and Republican heads of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week finally announced an agreement on comprehensive housing finance reform legislation but the release of a detailed bill for public consumption remains forthcoming. For now, it’s impossible to tell how the agreement reached by Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID, is any different than the bipartisan bill introduced early last year by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA. Johnson and Crapo are expected to release draft legislative language later this week, and move to a markup “in the coming weeks.” Like Corker-Warner, the Johnson-Crapo agreement includes...

Steadfast Capital, in conjunction with its partner, Customers Bank, has launched a program that will offer long-term loans collateralized by mortgage servicing rights to nonbanks. The goal is to help these firms retain MSRs and possibly buy receivables in the secondary market. Until now, most commercial banks would only make one-year “working capital” loans to non-depository mortgage firms. Steadfast and Customers will extend credit with terms of up to six years. “A one-year loan is...

It may be temporary, but residential mortgage debt outstanding fell in the fourth quarter. For buyers of servicers that means less product is available (in theory).

Will investors think twice about buying mortgage servicing rights because of the sabre rattling from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

The more detailed 'needs-to-improve' list includes Bank of America, CitiMortgage, Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Loan Servicing, Select Portfolio Servicing and Wells Fargo.

The CSP, headquartered in Bethesda, MD, has an annual budget of between $100 million and $300 million, according to Inside MBS & ABS.

Observers note that Barclays Bank is in the process of settling on a recent large NPL auction as well.

The mortgage servicing market posted its first gain in more than five years during the third quarter of 2013, but failed to get any traction as the supply of mortgage debt outstanding fell slightly over the last three months of the year. The unpaid balance of home mortgage debt peaked at an all-time high of $11.316 trillion in the first quarter of 2008 and then began a steady five-year decline through the third quarter of last year. But the Federal Reserve reported that the balance of home mortgage debt slid 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. Don’t blame...[Includes two data charts]

Well, at least GSE junior preferred shares are holding their own. Also, Five Oaks Investment is approving correspondents for its new jumbo flow-program...

One warehouse executive, requesting anonymity, said usage rates for the fourth quarter and the first two months of 2014 “have been very low.” He gave a range of 20 percent to 50 percent.