Agency mortgage servicers last year transferred some $369.44 billion of mortgage-servicing rights tied to mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, according to an exclusive new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. Thanks to an end-of-year surge, bulk MSR transactions accounted for most of the market. During the fourth quarter, some $76.69 billion of servicing changed hands in bulk transfers, a 76.5 percent jump from ... [Includes three data charts]

In another sign that the housing and mortgage markets continue to heal from their catastrophic collapse in 2007, the national foreclosure rate in the U.S. dropped by 30.53 percent in 2016, ending the year at 0.95 percent of active mortgages, according to new data from Black Knight Financial Services. “This marks the most improvement Black Knight has seen in any year on record,” the firm said in its “first look” at December 2016 month-end mortgage performance statistics. Also, the inventory of ...

Some 53 percent of the distressed homeowners seeking housing counseling in the past year were minorities, according to an analysis by the Homeownership Preservation Foundation. The nonprofit HPF operates the Hope Hotline, which offers free foreclosure-prevention counseling. The hotline gained prominence in 2007 as delinquencies and foreclosures started to pile up. While the number of distressed borrowers has declined significantly in recent years, delinquencies on ...

According to the Mayer Brown law firm, “Financial services companies that hoped for immediate regulatory relief when the Trump administration assumed control may have to wait a bit longer…”

According to one media report, two men were shot execution-style inside a mortgage business on Staten Island Tuesday night...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week brought a relatively modest $28.8 million enforcement action against CitiFinancial Servicing and CitiMortgage to resolve allegations that struggling borrowers were kept in the dark about options available to save their homes. Under the terms of the consent order, CitiMortgage has to pay an estimated $17 million to compensate wronged consumers, along with a civil penalty of $3 million. The CFPB is also compelling CitiFinancial Services to refund approximately $4.4 million to consumers, and pay a civil penalty of $4.4 million. The bureau’s action related...

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods has an “underperform” rating on Walter’s stock…

In a poll conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance, just 14 percent of respondents said they were against a cut in FHA premiums.

So far, the industry average on MSR markups for 4Q has been roughly 29 percent, according to a recent tally from Compass Point...

On the servicing front, BOK Financial revealed that 4Q16 income was reduced because it left servicing-related hedges on the books for too long...