What does the seller of the MSRs think about what's going on with the DFS? A spokesman for the nation's largest lender and servicer told IMFnews: "Wells Fargo has not been a party to any discussions with the New York Department of Financial Services regarding Ocwen."

Some mortgage brokers see the switch to a mini-correspondent as their only way to stay in business due to provisions in rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The ATR survey was sent to 53 mortgage-originating entities, mostly mortgage bankers with some independent mortgage brokers and other originators. No credit unions or savings and loans responded.

For the full year, Freddie posted net earnings of $48.7 billion, but executives at the GSE promised those profits will never, ever be achieved again.

The retail share of new residential originations declined slightly, to 60 percent, in the fourth quarter after climbing steadily during the first nine months of the year.

Commenting on Fairholme's court victory, one GSE observer quipped: “Game on.”

The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance this week suggested a change to proposed Reg AB2 disclosure requirements in an effort to protect the privacy of borrowers whose loans are included in MBS and ABS.

Of course, Ocwen is hardly alone when it comes to having a large overseas mortgage workforce. Wells Fargo and Nationstar, we’re told, also have decent sized back office operations in India…

Residential funders that relied heavily on refis, such as CashCall, have either shuttered operations or scaled back their significantly.

For Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities issued in January 2013, the average reported credit score was 701 and the average DTI ratio was 38.0. By December, the average FHA credit score was down to 680, while the average DTI ratio was up to 40.3.