On Monday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency published new guidelines to govern nonperforming loan sales by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

For all of 2014, this group of banks and nonbanks earned $14.01 billion off of mortgages, a 39.6 percent drop from the year before.

A spokesman for Ocwen declined to comment on the “controlled liquidation” characterization and could offer no time table on when the lender/servicer might release its fourth quarter results.

Kristie Kully of K&L Gates discussed how the rule treats issues related to splitting commissions, a subject her firm gets a lot of questions about...

Nationstar is 74 percent owned by hedge fund giant Fortress Investment Group.

One investor, commenting on the lack of information regarding 4Q results, told IMFnews: “I think the attorneys are going to make them disclose a lot of stuff that they have been brushing under the rug..."

The default risk index for securitized agency purchase mortgages rose to a new high in January, the fifth straight month of a steady increase in the composite National Mortgage Risk Index, according to the American Enterprise Institute. The NMRI increased to 11.97 percent, a 0.4 percentage point increase from the average default risk in fourth quarter last year and 0.8 percentage points up year over year. Data also indicated...

Servicers are benefitting from quicker transaction times on short sales, according to Fannie Mae. The government-sponsored enterprise said transaction time has been cut in half for short sales compared with the end of 2012, though the number of these transactions has also declined significantly. Short-sale transaction timelines currently average 45 days to 60 days, down from an average of 120 days in late 2012, according to a post on Fannie’s Housing Industry Forum website. The GSE said the HomePath short sale portal has helped reduce the time it takes to complete a short sale. The portal was released...

Not only are residential loan officers in high demand these days – especially ones with fat Rolodexes – but some of these top performers are being offered “signing bonuses” of $5,000 to $40,000, and even more to jump ship. Moreover, according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Trends, the most aggressive bidders for high-performing LOs are nonbanks, which have been steadily stealing market share away from the megabanks the past few years. “Most depositories are not committed...

A handful of nonbank mortgage companies reporting substantial losses during the fourth quarter weighed down industry-wide mortgage banking income, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports. A diverse group of 31 mortgage lenders that includes the biggest players in the market earned a combined $3.227 billion on their mortgage banking operations during the fourth quarter. That was down 8.2 percent from the group’s $3.516 billion during the third quarter. The fourth quarter was...[Includes one data chart]