A court ruling made late last month in a Michigan Court of Appeals decision further muddies the ability of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems to initiate a foreclosure. In a split decision, the judges ruled 2-1 in favor of borrowers whose homes were foreclosed on. MERS, as mortgagee, held an interest in...

Ocwen Financial Corp. is poised to significantly expand its mortgage servicing business with the acquisition of Litton Loan Servicing from Goldman Sachs Group for approximately $264 million. The sale price does not reflect certain assets that Goldman will retain, the investment bank said in a June 6 statement announcing the deal. The bank did not specify which assets would be excluded from the transaction. The planned sale will end...

Short sales, the bane of the home-purchase market for the past several years, have suddenly emerged as the fastest growing sector of the housing market in early 2011. According to new numbers released this week by the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey, short sales accounted for...

The interagency review of servicers’ foreclosure policies and practices found that although some process flaws were discovered, the foreclosure proceedings weren’t improper and didn’t cause undue borrower injury, despite the consent decrees’ more sinister portrayal of the findings, according to...

Industry groups continue to emphasize that servicer accountability and legitimate help for borrowers are key to addressing loan modification concerns that continue to plague the market. The crux of concern with modification programs is conflicting fiduciary duties, including financial incentives for banks not to...

New issuance of Ginnie Mae single-family mortgage securities declined 17.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database. It was the slowest three-month period in Ginnie securitization since the fourth quarter of 2008. Wells Fargo ranked as... [Includes one data chart]

Don’t hold your breath waiting for a legislative remedy in Congress to reform and/or replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The expectation on the Hill and throughout the industry is that meaningful action on GSE reform won’t occur until 2013 at the earliest, industry sources tell Inside The GSEs.

Banks reported a significant decline in the volume of mortgage repurchases and indemnifications they recorded during the first quarter of 2011, but buybacks clearly continue to weigh on mortgage banking profitability. According to a new call report analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends, banks reported a total of $3.83 billion in mortgage repurchases and indemnifications during the first quarter. That was down 19.2 percent from the previous three-month period.The buyback problem has clearly improved since the nine months between the... [includes one data chart and one graph]

The Treasury Department this week announced that it is withholding servicer incentive payments for the three largest lenders in the industry following compliance reviews that found them needing significant improvement in their Home Affordable Modification Program activity. The three servicers – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo – each typically collect about $7 million a month in servicer compensation for non-agency mortgages, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of Treasury data. Treasury found a fourth servicer – Ocwen Financial – was also in need of...[contains one data chart]

Freddie Mac made a major reshuffle of its executive suite this week with its announcement of new leadership in each of its three lines of businesses and the creation of a new division at the GSE, as well as a number of other senior leadership changes.With the move, Freddie consolidates the previously separate Single-Family Credit Guarantee, Single-Family Portfolio Management and Operations & Technology divisions into the new Single-Family and Operations & Technology division.