There’s a growing interest on the part of new investors in buying residential mortgage servicing rights, but observers say a major impediment for the market is a lack of confidence that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will acknowledge their ownership rights. “It’s a problem,” said Tom Piercy, managing member of Interactive Mortgage Advisors, a servicing brokerage and advisory firm. “Fannie and Freddie could learn a thing or two from Ginnie.” The phrase “new investors” generally applies...

Fannie Mae’s plan to unload potentially billions of dollars’ worth of non-performing loans has been delayed and may even be scuttled, according to industry officials tracking the project. Fannie has been working on an NPL sale for close to a year, and has even hired an investment banker, Milestone Advisors LLC, to guide it through the auction process. Initially, it had hoped to offer a package of $250 million of delinquent home mortgages for sale to the highest bidder. Although the government-sponsored enterprise would not comment...

Consumer advocates are calling on the Obama administration to extend the Home Affordable Modification Program beyond the end of this year. While HAMP is far from meeting performance goals set by the administration, consumer advocates claim the program is favorable to proprietary loan modifications completed by servicers. “Extending the HAMP program for several years – or, at a minimum, for one year – would greatly assist the housing market in general and neighborhoods most affected by high foreclosure rates in particular by helping more homeowners avoid foreclosure,” 36 consumer groups, including the Center for Responsible Lending and the National Consumer Law Center, said in a recent letter to Jacob Lew, secretary of the Treasury Department. In January 2012, the Obama administration announced...

The White House expects huge profits over the next 10 years from - drum roll please - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Wells Fargo has unloaded most of - but not all - of its remaining servicing rights tied to reverse mortgages. However, the bank says it is still "committed" to seniors through home equity loans.

More than 10 bidders showed up for a recent auction of new Fannie Mae servicing rights, a sign that the MSR market is getting hot.

Borrowers with loan-to-value ratios greater than 105 percent accounted for 47 percent of HARP volume in January.

The upcoming White House meeting on mortgage and housing issues may not address loan standards at all. Wells confirms plan to hire MSR 'project manager.'

Bank of America is once again offering for sale a large package of mortgage servicing rights and at least a half-dozen or so buyers are lining up to bid.

After losing an appeal, the UBS MBS case brought by the Federal Housing Finance Agency is set for trial early next year.