The report, conducted by Alvarez & Marshall, was making the rounds in Washington Wednesday morning. John O’Neill, a managing director in the evaluation firm of Alvarez & Marsal, confirmed to IMFnews that his company conducted an evaluation on the GSEs for the Blackstone Group.

Richmond's mayor said the new rehabilitation program can be completed in addition to eminent domain. However, significant opposition to ED from mortgage industry participants appears to have changed how the city plans to implement its latest plan.

It would appear that Wells Fargo is raiding the senior staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Of course, it could be a mere coincidence.

Translation into English: If you bought Ocwen’s stock at $60 and it’s now trading at $40 and you’re really steamed, give us a call.

In a 10-K filing, PHH said its mortgage business relies on just two firms for 41 percent of its private-label retail business: Merrill Lynch Home Loans at 29 percent and Morgan Stanley at 12 percent.

Servicers would face annual government certifications and biennial examinations by the new regulator/insurance fund. Minimum operational and management standards would be created for internal controls, recordkeeping, audit systems, and reporting, to name just a few.

How does the Johnson-Crapo bill favor senior preferred shareholders? The language notes that when assets in Fannie and Freddie are eventually sold, the idea is to “maximize the return for the senior preferred share-holders of the enterprises”…

CFPB Deputy Director Steve Antonakes isn’t toning down his antagonistic stance towards mortgage servicers. Speaking at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition Annual Conference in Washington, DC, last week, Antonakes rattled the bureau’s sabre at the market sector again, saying, “We expect servicers to pay exceptionally close attention to servicing transfers and they should understand that we will as well. “Servicing transfers where the new servicers are not honoring existing permanent or trial loan modifications will not be tolerated,” he added. “Struggling borrowers being told to pay incorrect higher amounts because of the failure to honor an in-process loan modification – and then being punished with foreclosure for their inability to pay the incorrect amounts – will not be tolerated.”

Regulators have been paying closer attention to the mortgage servicing practices of the large nonbank servicers, but they’re not the bad actors their critics make them out to be, analysts at Compass Point Research & Trading concluded recently. “Overall, we believe there is some merit to the operational concerns about portfolio growth for the special servicers, but the longer-term track record of the special servicers is strong and the near-term operational issues likely will be temporary,” the Compass Point team said.The analysts compared the servicing practices between the largest bank and nonbank mortgage servicers.

An affiliate of Nationstar Mortgage is preparing to issue an ABS backed by servicer advances and deferred servicing fee receivables, continuing a trend of nonbank servicers fueling their growth via securitization. Industry analysts suggest that the deals offer good returns to investors, even with regulators increasing their scrutiny of nonbanks. The $1.96 billion servicer advance ABS from New Residential Investment is expected to close on March 18, according to a presale report by Standard & Poor’s. The deal is set to receive a AAA rating from the rating service. “Based on the nature of the assets which historically display high recovery typically at the top of the waterfall, we would view...