As one M&A advisor noted: "Value is in the eye of the beholder."

“When is enough, enough? Paying for past sins, sometimes before they were sins. I’m not speaking specifically about Wells Fargo, but in general.” – Marc Savitt, NAIHP president.

The ongoing decline in interest rates is wreaking havoc on the sale of “bulk” mortgage servicing portfolios, causing investors to pull back on pricing, and sending some bidders to the exits, at least for a little while. Servicing advisors who play in the space confirmed to Inside Mortgage Finance that pricing isn’t what it used to be, and is off peaks seen a year ago when bids – in retrospect – were too aggressive and later resulted in write-downs. Mark Garland, president of MountainView Servicing Group, Denver, admitted...

Steady growth over the course of 2015 may have taken the long-suffering mortgage servicing market close to the $10 trillion mark at the end of the year, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. The top 50 companies at 2015 serviced a combined $7.326 trillion in home mortgages, a slight 0.3 percent increase from the end of the third quarter. If the rest of the industry followed their lead, the supply of servicing outstanding rose to $9.982 trillion by the end of December. Based on trends during the first nine months of 2015, as reported by the Federal Reserve, the supply of home loan debt outstanding may have trickled...[Includes one data table]

A recent ruling by the Rhode Island Supreme Court has increased concerns that state courts will allow liens for homeowner associations and related entities to supersede first-lien mortgages. In late December, the R.I. Supreme Court ruled that a condo foreclosure sale conducted pursuant to the R.I. Condominium Act can extinguish a prior-recorded first mortgage if the lender fails to redeem the mortgage within 30 days of the foreclosure. The decision reversed a ruling by a lower court, which found that the borrower’s mortgage survived the condo association’s lien foreclosure sale. The Mortgage Bankers Association said...

Will the last megabank left in the mortgage industry please turn out the lights...

The extended deadline also provides mortgage companies an opportunity to pursue loss mitigation before initiating foreclosure against a customer.

One observer called the $1.2 billion “chump change” for Wells.

We also are hearing reports that TRID errors and closing delays definitely will be affecting first quarter 2016 earnings, at least for certain nonbanks…

Mortgage firms that are thinking about selling are 15 to 25 years old, said one M&A advisor...