Equity Loans LLC, Atlanta, a national direct lender, said it has received final approval to become a Fannie Mae seller/servicer.

A new analysis by Public Citizen of a variety of data points on foreclosures paints a grim portrait of the havoc wrought upon homeowners by the Great Recession.

Walter Investment Management Corp. is expanding its presence in the reverse market with an agreement to acquire Security One Lending (S1L), a California-based retail and wholesale reverse mortgage lender, in a stock-purchase deal valued at up to $31 million.

Although the CFPB is done – for now – with its regulations governing what servicers can do regarding their residential mortgage customers, there’s still one area they intend to explore: servicing transfers. At a regulatory field hearing in Baltimore earlier this month, agency officials said they will look into the issue. How far it will go is another matter. “They’re definitely working...

The CFPB has issued its voluminous new national mortgage servicing final rules, including a host of required loss mitigation rules and processes and bringing a substantial amount of uniformity to a sector much maligned because of its controversial “robo-signing” practices. Under the rule, servicers will have to follow specified loss mitigation procedures for a mortgage loan secured by a borrower’s principal residence. If a borrower applies for a loss mitigation option, the servicer is generally required to acknowledge, within five days and in writing, that it has received the application and inform the borrower whether the application is complete. If the application is...

The CFPB decided to exempt small entities that service fewer than 5,000 loans and service only mortgages that they or an affiliate originated or own from a number of the requirements of its new mortgage servicing final rule. For instance, the bureau exempted small servicers from having to create and maintain new general servicing policies and procedures, and from having to issue monthly statements that would include more information than most community banks currently provide. The new rule also permits...

New rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau require servicers to consult with loan owners regarding the loss mitigation process and increase reporting of loss mitigation activity. Senior officials at the CFPB said they have received complaints that servicers are not offering loan modification options allowed by loan owners, including non-agency mortgage-backed security investors. A senior CFPB official said servicers do not always have strong incentives to offer ...

Six months after non-agency servicers were able to offer expanded loan modification options under the Home Affordable Modification Program, only 331 of such “Tier 2” mods had been completed, according to the Treasury Department. Industry analysts suggest that HAMP will fall well short of the Treasury’s volume goals when the program expires at the end of this year, possibly due to noncompliance by servicers. HAMP Tier 2 was announced in January and effective June 1, though not all non-agency HAMP servicers ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced new security measures to ensure that only authorized lenders and servicers have access to mortgage-related data. Guidance issued earlier this month establishes new security procedures for resetting users’ PIN numbers and validating their identities. Users must be validated as an employee of the lender/servicer that seeks access to the VA’s Veteran Information Portal (VIP). The VA will provide each approved lender/servicer with a list of previous users for validation. Upon completion of the validation, the list must be ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has sweetened the pot to encourage more investors to participate in an FHA program for disposing of real estate-owned properties to ease HUD’s housing inventory. HUD announced it is raising the discount for REO properties under its First Look Sales Method to 15 percent from 10 percent. Properties include those that do not meet the standards for FHA insurance. The special program was launched in 2010 to give preference to eligible purchasers under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) to ...