States proposed standards in 2015 to increase oversight of nonbank lenders and servicers but didn’t act to finalize them. The new chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors is making the issue a priority.

In one of the largest M&A deals of the year, Freedom has agreed to buy RoundPoint Mortgage but details are hard to come by, including the issue of debt assumption. Meanwhile, industry advisors fear that declining interest rates might put other transactions on hold.

In a speech this week before the annual secondary market conference of the Mortgage Bankers Association, FHFA Director Mark Calabria sounded a little bit like the Mark Calabria of the Cato Institute.

We're halfway through the second quarter and MSR sales are middling, a byproduct of lower interest rates and what may lie ahead. However, dealmakers believe 2H could bring a boom in sales activity.

The total mortgage delinquency rate among large mortgage servicers in March was at the second-lowest level in the post-crisis era. A number of factors are contributing to strong loan performance.

New Jersey recently passed licensing requirements for mortgage servicers, taking the tally to about 40 states. More than 20 states also have licensing requirements for investors in servicing.

The National Association of Realtors this week picked apart FHFA's plan to recapitalize the GSEs and release them from conservatorship. NAR, by the way, favors a model where the GSEs are morphed into shareholder-owned utilities.

Possibly dozens of VA lenders have been handed subpoenas from the federal government tied to VA delinquencies and possibly loan churning. Is this a fishing expedition or something more? Needless to say, lenders are worried.

An auction of Ditech Financial is scheduled for the end of May. At stake is not only the company’s future — and the jobs of roughly 2,700 full-time employees — but $187.2 billion in mortgage servicing rights. If bidders fail to show up, Ch. 7 will likely be the next step.

Ditech is about to lose a huge subservicing contract that it has with New Residential Investment Corp. A handful of subservicing vendors are considered finalists to replace Ditech, including market leader Cenlar and the number-three ranked LoanCare.