Roughly 1.2 million U.S. homes were in some stage of foreclosure during February, a 21 decline from the same period in 2011, and that spells trouble for bottom feeders looking to buy real estate owned properties from banks and auction companies. According to interviews with investors, servicing executives and mortgage bankers, some buyers are turning to the nonperforming loan market as a “back door” way to buy properties. “Investors that are buying NPLs in this fashion are looking to foreclose so they ...

The Internal Revenue Service issued an opinion this month stating that real estate owned costs do not need to be capitalized. Lawyers at Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick said IRS memorandum AM2013-001 appears to reverse an IRS opinion issued last year which stated that costs associated with REOs must be capitalized. “Historically, many banks have deducted expenses associated with other REO property currently rather than capitalizing them,” Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick said. However, in the last few years ...

Despite a sharp increase in mortgage originations last year, the number of state-licensed loan originators increased by just 2.7 percent compared to 2011, according to data from the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System analyzed by Inside Mortgage Trends. A total of 519,428 loan originators were either licensed by the states or registered as staff of a bank, thrift or credit union. The highest concentration of these LOs was in California, where 15.3 percent of the industry ... [Includes one data chart]

Is the tide turning on residential delinquencies suffered by banks or do the numbers look better because the group is selling legacy MSRs?

According to an analysis by Fitch Ratings, the overall charges for a simple jumbo non-agency MBS across all note-holders would increase to between 6.3 percent and 8.2 percent under the new proposal.

The launch of the revised CFPB database expands the bureau's consumer complaint apparatus in a major way. It includes a sub-category for many products, including mortgages.

Fannie Mae could have an answer to its 'deferred tax asset' issue by the end of next week, freeing up billions of dollars in money.

Is Navy Federal's no-downpayment product safe? It believes so, and is quite happy with the delinquency experience on the loan but won't provide specifics.

Genworth moves closer to delinking from its mortgage insurance unit. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo has suffered the loss of a well-regarded regional rep.

No one is suggesting, quite yet, that new “bulk” and “flow” servicing deals will become com-monplace again, but thanks to rising interest rates and home values, there is a new optimism among sellers that hasn’t been seen since the housing crash of 2008 (Includes three data charts)