Ocwen Financial announced late last week that its planned purchase of mortgage servicing rights on a $39.2 billion portfolio of mortgages from Wells Fargo is on “indefinite hold” due to a request and scrutiny by the New York Department of Financial Services. Industry participants suggest that delays in servicing transfers due to third parties are common and the deal with Ocwen, which largely consists of mortgages in non-agency MBS, will be completed. “Ocwen will continue to work closely with the NYDFS to resolve its concerns about Ocwen’s servicing portfolio growth,” the servicer said. The NYDFS raised concerns that Ocwen doesn’t have enough capacity to handle the significant portfolio growth experienced by the servicer in recent years. Certain nonbank servicers are getting...
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen stuck close to the script of her predecessor on the subject of the Fed’s “quantitative easing” exit strategy during her first Humphrey-Hawkins appearance before Congress this week, reaffirming that the central bank’s pull-back from its asset-purchase program is likely to continue, barring a dramatic surprise. “Let me emphasize that I expect a great deal of continuity in the Fed Open Market Committee’s approach to monetary policy,” Yellen told the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. “I served on the committee as we formulated our current policy strategy and I strongly support that strategy, which is designed to fulfill the Federal Reserve’s statutory mandate of maximum employment and price stability.” The new Fed chief reminded...
Freddie Mac last week announced a $1 billion offering of its Structured Agency Credit Risk debt notes, the government-sponsored enterprise’s first risk-sharing transaction of 2014 and its third such deal since the company rolled out the STACR series last year. The deal is backed by a pool of $32.4 billion 30-year fixed-rate mortgages acquired by Freddie in the second quarter of 2013. More than 65 investors participated in Freddie’s latest STACR deal, and more than 20 of those investors were newcomers, according to Kevin Palmer, vice president of single-family strategic credit costing and structuring for Freddie. “We’ve introduced...
For an industry that’s looking at a 30 percent decline in originations, we’re seeing a great deal of SEC 13-d filings by investment funds that are upping their stakes in such players as MGIC, Radian, Ocwen, Walter, EverBank and the like.
Certain nonbank servicers are getting “too big, too fast,” Ben Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, said in a speech this week. The remarks came after the NYDFS halted the transfer of mortgage servicing rights with an unpaid principal balance from Wells Fargo to Ocwen Financial. Lawsky said state regulators and servicers need to make sure that transfers of servicing to nonbanks don’t put borrowers at risk. He raised particular concerns about staffing levels at nonbanks, with ...
Ocwen Financial announced last week that its purchase of mortgage servicing rights from Wells Fargo is on “indefinite hold” due to a request from the New York Department of Financial Services. While some have suggested that the deal for servicing on mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $39.2 billion won’t be completed, officials at nonbanks note that delays on servicing transfers due to third parties are common. In recent years, the time required to fulfill contractual conditions from initial closing ...
One of the biggest challenges for nonbanks that want to originate jumbos is finding capital to fund the operations. Two Harbors Investment appears to have found a unique source of capital for non-agency originations: a government-sponsored enterprise. In December, TH Insurance Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Two Harbors, was granted membership in the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines. Officials at Two Harbors said the company appears to be the first real estate investment trust to receive ...
Two real estate investment trusts with jumbo mortgage correspondent and conduit operations have scaled back their activity due to strong competition from banks. “The majority of today’s jumbo mortgage activity is being driven by banks originating or acquiring loans for their balance sheet,” said Stanford Kurland, chairman and CEO of PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust. PennyMac had ramped up its jumbo activity in the second quarter of 2013 with $107 million in fundings. In the third quarter of 2013 ...
There are pockets in the jumbo market that offer lenders attractive yields, if they are willing to take on the risk of originating loans that don’t meet qualified-mortgage requirements, according to Matthew Ostrander, CEO of Parkside Lending. The lender recently launched Parkside Mortgage Trust, a real estate investment trust that will purchase non-agency loans originated by Parkside. “Parkside’s analytics of loan performance and product development has been many years in the making to ensure our ...
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