Not only is HUD looking into PHH's underwriting practices, but the government has questions about the lender's foreclosure expenses.

The auction market for nonperforming mortgages is beginning to generate heat with prices rising nicely from last year.

Come next year, Freddie Mac will assess lenders a fee of $7,500 if they fail to deliver mortgage loans with an aggregate principal balance of more than $5 million.

Nonbank servicers had an average of 275 loans per employee in the second half of 2012, according to Fitch, about the same level seen since 2010.

Bank investment in residential MBS fell 1.1 percent during the first quarter of 2013 to $1.562 trillion.

New bulk MSR packages continue to hit the market. Many of the new deals have low coupons and hardly any delinquencies.

A new bill to replace Fannie and Freddie with a single government guarantor is already being dismissed.

The Senate Banking Committee has yet to schedule a confirmation hearing for Mel Watt to head FHFA. Does this lack of action mean anything?

Banks and thrifts saw another drop in their MBS holdings in the first quarter of 2013 despite holding their own against the Federal Reserve’s voracious appetite for agency MBS. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of bank and thrift call reports reveals that industry investment in residential MBS fell 1.1 percent during the first quarter of 2013 to $1.562 trillion. That was down 4.4 percent from the record $1.634 trillion of MBS held in portfolio by banks and thrifts at the end of the first quarter of last year. Banks reported...[Includes two data charts]

Security issuers, investors and the rating services largely praised unsolicited rating requirements established by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010, but they had different views on how the rules should be changed. “Rating agency information arbitrage has been eliminated,” Kevin Duignan, global head of structured finance at Fitch Ratings, said of the SEC’s Rule 17g-5, which established unsolicited rating standards. “We’re all getting the same information and we know we’re getting the same information.” Rule 17g-5 requires...