Final Civil Action: Primary Residential Mortgage. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General has recommended that the department’s Office of Legal Counsel acknowledged $3.13 million of a $5 million settlement agreed to by Primary Residential Mortgage is due HUD. Primary agreed last September to a $5 million settlement with the Department of Justice to resolve allegations of failing to comply with FHA requirements in connection with its origination, underwriting and endorsement of 100 FHA-insured loans. Primary’s settlement is neither an admission of guilt nor assumption of any liability that may arise from the flawed transactions, the IG said. As of Oct. 4, 2016, the settlement amount due HUD had been paid in full. Moody’s Downgrades $243 Million of FHA/VA Residential MBS. Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the ...

The new MBS is largely backed by non-QMs, along with some “rebuttable presumption” QMs…

When it comes to cashing out of large blocks of GSE common stock, sellers face the ‘Roach Motel’ syndrome: investors check, but can’t necessarily check out…

With interest rates staying steady the past few weeks, more bulk MSR deals are hitting the market.

Nonbanks continued to grab a larger share of the mortgage servicing business during the fourth quarter of 2016, and the rapid emergence of investor servicers – firms that buy mortgage-servicing rights while tapping other firms to actually administer the pools – promises to bring more change. A new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis shows that nonbanks that ranked among the top 50 servicers increased their holdings by 6.9 percent during the fourth quarter. Depository institutions among the top 50 servicers reduced their holdings by 1.2 percent during the same period. With Citi, the sixth-largest servicer at the end of 2016, now in the process of selling a large chunk of its MSR assets – in some cases to investors that will use subservicers – the demographics of the industry will change...[Includes two data tables]

Real estate investment trust New Residential Investment Corp. has been quietly trolling for mortgage servicing assets the past year and snagged a big one this week when it agreed to buy $97 billion in agency rights from Citigroup. Now comes the hard part: incorporating the receivables into an already fast-growing portfolio and convincing regulators at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Ginnie Mae officials that it has both the management structure and the financial wherewithal to handle so much product. According to a tally from Inside Mortgage Finance, since early December New Residential has acquired...

Fairholme: “Only the disingenuous would assert that recapitalization of these companies would take decades and come at taxpayers’ expense…”

Tom Hutchens of AOMS, said “a lot” of his optimism about higher nonprime origination volumes for 2017 is tied to securitization. “This is now a liquid market,” he said.

The nomination of investment banker Steven Mnuchin to head the Treasury Department moved forward Wednesday...

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods is worried about the prepayment risk that comes with owning so much Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac servicing rights…