The Federal Reserve will go ahead with proposed rule changes related to mortgage servicing rights, but with what it calls a “lengthy transition period.”
Hedge fund giant Cerberus Capital Management has quietly purchased a nonbank mortgage company based in Georgia and plans to use the firm to grow it into a national player in residential finance, according to industry sources close to the deal. One official inside of Cerberus confirmed the purchase to Inside Mortgage Finance as well as some of the growth plans, but declined to identify the company. Cerberus, which makes investments worldwide, operates dozens of funds, many of which target specific sectors or projects. The sale was facilitated...
Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corp., a real estate investment trust launched by Freedom Mortgage, recently filed updated documents tied to its initial public offering, but remains quiet on when it might actually go public. Like many REITs, the new company is setting its sights on the mortgage servicing market, in particular “excess servicing” rights that will be created by Freedom, which is based in Cherry Hill, NJ. The company did not return calls from Inside Mortgage Finance about the offering. There has been...
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors unanimously issued a revised Basel III final rule this week that abandons the proposed changes to the risk-weighting of residential mortgages, but presses ahead with the proposed new treatment of mortgage servicing rights. In backing off the proposed changes for residential mortgages, Fed officials cited community bank concerns about the complexity of calculating loan-to-value ratios under the proposed regime. They also emphasized concerns about the unknown interaction the proposed changes would have with other mortgage-related rulemakings confronting the industry, most notably the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s “qualified mortgage” standard as well as the qualified residential mortgage definition, which is still in development by federal regulators. “In light of new regulations designed to improve the quality of mortgage underwriting as well as continued uncertainty regarding the aggregate impact of pending mortgage-related rulemakings, the draft final rule does not include...
Gordon Albrecht, executive vice president for FCI Lender Services, said, “The less the banks lend, for whatever reason, the more goes to private-money firms.”
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