The amount of home mortgage debt outstanding continued its post-crisis downward spiral in the early months of 2013, although the agency servicing market grew slightly, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. The Federal Reserve reported total home mortgage debt outstanding of $9.868 trillion as of the end of March, down 0.6 percent from the previous quarter. Under pressure from falling house prices and the collapse of the non-agency market, the supply of MDO has been in steady decline since peaking at its all-time high of $11.195 trillion at the end of 2007. Single-family servicing associated...[Includes two data charts]

Residential debt outstanding fell slightly in the first quarter, but the GSE/FHA share of the market continued to grow.

With rates rising and liquidity increasing, more mortgage servicing portfolios are hitting the auction market.

When rates rise, loan officers begin to bite their nails, unless they are heavily reliant on purchase-money loans.

The Corker-Warner GSE bill could see the light of day next Tuesday. Meanwhile, HLSS is selling more shares to the public.

Fannie Mae’s “bifurcated” mortgage program that allows lenders to get a better price for selling their mortgage servicing rights while retaining representations and warranties tied to origination and sale to the government-sponsored enterprise has been gathering momentum over the past six months. According to servicing advisors, the effort has played an important role in returning liquidity to the MSR market, especially for medium-sized lenders that lived in fear of buybacks and headaches tied to representations and warranties. “The program is...

OneWest Bank’s decision to sell $78 billion in unpaid principal balance of mortgage servicing rights and related servicing advance receivables to Ocwen Financial continues the trend of banks unloading servicing with special servicers. However, the deal is unique in that OneWest’s owners have been looking to cash out of the entire banking operation for a while. Ocwen announced late last week that it will buy the MSRs and servicing advance receivables for $2.53 billion, with the sale expected to close in stages this year. “We have entered into a definitive agreement with Ocwen Loan Servicing to sell our third-party mortgage servicing rights for forward mortgages in order to sharpen our focus on developing a leading regional banking franchise,” said Joseph Otting, president and CEO of OneWest. The bank was...

The chief enforcer of a massive settlement involving five top servicers portrayed the results of the most recent round of compliance testing as confirmation of issues that need to be “rectified” and the need for holding servicers accountable. Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said the failure of the five servicers on eight compliance tests shows that “abuses shamefully endure.” He put the companies on notice that they would face monetary penalties if they don’t comply. The report from the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight did show...

Because of the "qualified mortgage" rule WesBanco may kill a charitable home loan program that has been in place since 1951.

In addition to having the most failed metrics, CitiMortgage was found to be in “widespread” noncompliance with the timeliness requirement to notify a borrower of any missing documents in his modification application.