Freedom has big expansion plans for the new year. Company CEO and founder Stan Middleman recently told IMFnews Daily that he plans to hire between 200 and 500 residential loan officers in 2014.

Will well-known mortgage trainer Barry Habib stick with Residential Finance Corp., a company whose assets are in the process of being sold? It’s hard to say since RFC isn’t answering questions on about the firm’s future.

At September 30, Flagstar had capitalized the MSRs on its balance sheet at 107 basis points.

What's ahead for residential lenders and servicers in 2014? You might be surprised at some of our predictions. Hint: The servicing market looks good, at least.

“The recent decline in large-lender share of the primary market is temporary, and principally a result of cyclical factors that caused larger lenders to pull back from the market,” said Fannie Mae's Gerry Flood.

Some 44 percent of mods on portfolio loans by eight large banks and thrifts include principal reduction in the third quarter of 2013.

It's not every day that a REIT gains access to a Federal Home Loan Bank. This REIT, of course, likes to buy mortgage servicing rights.

Let’s just hope that if Bernie Madoff and Lee Farkas are socializing together in prison they’re not plotting some type of massive mortgage scam.

One former regulator told us that HUD is relying too heavily on foreclosure sales, which can drive down median values.

As an industry, banks assigned a fair-market value of $48.4 billion to their mortgage servicing rights, according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Trends.