Consumer complaints to the CFPB about mortgage-related issues are on the verge of a free-fall, with volumes dropping by double digits, quarterly and annually, in every category tracked, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside the CFPB. For starters, total gripes fell 15.9 percent from the third quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter, and by 27.8 percent year over year. Digging into specific kinds of complaints, criticisms about loan modifications mirrored those trend lines, dropping 15.3 percent from 3Q17 to 4Q17, and by 29.2 percent on an annual basis. When it came to mortgage servicing, consumer kvetching was on a parallel track, down 13.0 percent and 26.4 percent, quarter over quarter and year over year, respectively. In ...

The White House may be committed to GSE reform, but Republicans are not...

The lone bank bucking the trend was U.S. Bank, Minneapolis, which funded $12.5 billion, a 3.3 percent improvement from the prior period.

Despite a slowdown during its final lap, 2017 was a strong year for sales of agency mortgage servicing rights, according to a new analysis of mortgage-backed securities data by Inside Mortgage Trends.The market saw some $538.49 billion of agency servicing rights change hands last year, a 22.0 percent increase from 2016. Most of the MSR transfers were bulk transactions, which totaled $406.78 billion, a huge 51.1 percent jump from the previous year. Bulk deals ... [Includes three data charts]

Financial services provider Situs is two weeks away from closing on its purchase of MountainView Financial Solutions, Denver, one of the most active brokers of mortgage servicing rights in the nation. Once the transaction is completed, it will mark the second significant residential-related purchase of the past seven months for the New York-based Situs, which bills itself as a “global provider of business solutions for real estate and financial service firms.” Back in May ...

The nonbank share of agency servicing grew by 4.7 percentage points during 2017.

The first RFI from the CFPB will be on Civil Investigative Demands, which are issued during an enforcement investigation.

Nonbanks will likely account for over half of outstanding agency single-family servicing by the end of 2018 if market trends continue as they have in recent years.

The Federal Reserve Board last week wrapped up enforcement actions against 10 banks and im-posed fines against five of them after “sustainable improvements” in their servicing operations.

If a GSE reform bill does not get signed into law this year, how much longer will the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stick around?