Officials at Ocwen Financial were highly critical of the accounting methods used by other servicers that have acquired significant holdings of mortgage servicing rights recently. Ocwen might also soon have more cash than necessary for its planned acquisition opportunities, with officials considering initiating a stock buyback. William Erbey, Ocwen’s chairman, said his company is considerably less leveraged than other servicers. He noted that Ocwen carries most of its MSRs at market value rather than ...
Raising capital for privately held nonbank lenders that want to grow their holdings of residential mortgage servicing rights – or get into the market – has been mostly a dormant business since the housing bust of 2008, but Steadfast Capital hopes to change all that. And the newly launched company isn’t just raising capital through equity and structured debt offerings – it plans to invest alongside the lenders it’s working for. “We have a willingness to invest in every deal,” said Steadfast president, CEO and founder David Fleig. “It’s important to us.” Presently, Steadfast is talking...
Two months ago, if you asked a broker of mortgage servicing rights how the market was doing, he would have said “decent.” But today, it’s a different story with the words “great” and “hot” getting muttered frequently. Over the past 60 days, several large flow and bulk MSR deals have been sent out for bid, many of which have been non-legacy offerings. Sellers are more willing to part with new MSR packages, product that is deemed to be of the highest quality with little chance of prepaying thanks to the ultra-low interest rates of today. And just how hot is the market? Interactive Mortgage Advisors, Denver, is wrapping up...
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced this week that he plans to file lawsuits against Bank of America and Wells Fargo for failing to comply with servicing standards included in the $25 billion national servicing settlement. Other states appear likely to join the action, though the litigation might not have much of an impact on the servicers, according to industry analysts. “My office has received a significant number of complaints regarding the flagrant violations by Bank of America and Wells Fargo of the loan modification timeline requirements contained in [the settlement],” Schneiderman said in a letter to the committee monitoring the settlement. BofA and Wells, along with Ally Financial, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, have had to comply...
Expanding Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s loan modification policy to include principal forgiveness under the Home Affordable Modification Program would generate fewer than 60,000 additional modifications and avoid up to 100,000 defaults, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional numbers-cruncher concluded that reaching additional borrowers “would require a significant departure” from HAMP’s current eligibility rules. In 2010, the Treasury Department expanded...
Roughly 75 percent of bank loan officers cited put-back risk by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as an important factor limiting their current ability or willingness to approve home-purchase loans.
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