Although residential lenders are coming off a better than expected production quarter – and enjoying a decent last three months of the year – analysts and investors seem undecided on whether there’s opportunity in the market or it’s time to stay on the sidelines. Several high profile publicly traded shops that are considered “high touch” specialists – Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Financial and Walter Investment – continue to trade at steep discounts to their 52-week highs with all three facing possible class-action lawsuits from angry investors who’ve seen billions of dollars in stock equity evaporate over the past year. And then there’s...
For several months now, Arvest Bank has been working on a roughly $28 billion servicing sale with a subservicing component extended to the eventual buyer, but so far a deal has been allusive, according to investment banking sources familiar with the situation. “From what I can tell, the package is still out there,” said one source who was briefed on the situation. Arvest Bank services...
Wells Fargo is in discussions with the Department of Justice about a possible resolution of alleged improper origination and servicing of FHA loans that resulted in huge paid claims and significant losses to the agency’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. The ongoing talks are related to a complaint filed by the government in federal district court in Manhattan on Oct. 9, 2012, alleging, among other things, that Wells Fargo improperly certified FHA mortgages between 2001 and 2010 for insurance even though it knew the underwriting was flawed. The complaint said that the bank’s insurance claims should not have been paid when some of the loans later defaulted. It further alleged that Wells Fargo did not disclose the loans’ deficiencies to the FHA before making insurance claims. On Dec. 1, 2012, Wells Fargo filed...
We should point out that even though LoanDepot is doing the buying, the Mortgage Master brand name will survive. LD did the same thing when it combined forces with imortgage last year…
Private mortgage insurers reported hefty increases in the volume of new insurance written during the third quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. The seven active private MIs wrote primary insurance coverage on $53.95 billion of new mortgage originations during the third quarter, a gain of 22.8 percent from the previous period. On a year-to-date basis, total new primary insurance by the MIs was still down 22.4 percent from the first nine months of last year, mostly because activity in the Home Affordable Refinance Program has declined sharply. HARP accounted...[Includes three data charts]
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