Ever since the nation’s financial crisis, commercial banks and other depositories have dominated the second-lien business and likely will continue to do so in the coming years, but that isn’t stopping nonbanks from testing the waters once again. According to research by Inside Mortgage Finance, several nonbanks have slipped back into the market, albeit with muted production volumes. And many of the firms that have crept back in are partnering with depositories. The reason for the strategy is...

A year from now, PHH Mortgage likely won’t be around, at least not as a conventional mortgage-banking franchise that originates residential loans and retains servicing rights. That’s what analysts and investment bankers who follow the stock now believe, especially in light of the company’s recent announcement that it will sell its $72 billion portfolio of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage servicing rights to New Residential Investment Corp. for $612 million or 84 basis points. Once completed, the sale – along with a pending disposal of its Ginnie Mae MSR – will leave...

Small servicers have significantly outpaced larger servicers in terms of growth in the past year. While many nonbanks focused on servicing nonperforming mortgages in the past, the more recent growth by small servicers has been in performing mortgages, including those originated in-house. The total unpaid principal balance of single-family mortgages outstanding at the end of the third quarter of 2016 was $10.11 trillion, up by 1.6 percent, according to the Federal Reserve. Growth was...

Mortgage lenders delivered a hefty $299.25 billion of single-family home loans into the mortgage-backed securities platforms at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis and ranking. Production in the final three months of 2016 was up just 5.7 percent from the third quarter at the two government-sponsored enterprises. But it was the biggest output since the second quarter of 2013, when the mortgage market was wrapping up a 12-month binge of activity with $337.74 billion in Fannie/Freddie MBS issuance. The strong finish – GSE business was up in each quarter of 2016 – put...[Includes three data tables]

“It was a record month for us,” said Angel Oak executive Mike Fierman.

The seller of the MSRs is a large nonbank based in the Midwest...

That being said, “There is a lot at stake on the RESPA front," said one attorney...

President-elect Donald Trump wants to improve access to credit. A cut in FHA premiums would presumably help...

Fannie Mae’s MBS issuance in 2016 was up 23.3 percent from the previous year…

Residential servicers started 47,955 new foreclosures in the quarter, a 1.6 percent sequential decline, and a whopping 25.3 percent fall compared to a year ago.