Over the past few months, the chief executive officers at two publicly traded mortgage firms and a private cooperative have departed, creating uncertainty in the market while underscoring what might seem obvious to some: It’s not easy running a mortgage business these days. CEOs heading for the exits – either on their own accord or via a management edict – include Jim Cutillo of Stonegate, Jeff McGuiness at the Lenders One Cooperative, and most recently Mark O’Brien, who headed nonbank lender/servicer Walter Investment Management Corp. And rounding out the “departure club” is...

An acquirer of mortgage servicing rights has agreed to pay $1.5 million and to stop committing further violations to resolve charges of misstating net income and misleading the Securities and Exchange Commission about its relationship with servicer Ocwen Financial Group. The settlement agreement between the SEC and Home Loan Servicing Solutions is the latest twist in the long-running federal and state investigations of Ocwen and its relationships with affiliated companies, which have included HLSS, Altisource Residential, Altisource Portfolio Solutions and Altisource Asset Management. The common thread in all five companies is...

While there may be some dispute in the industry regarding front-end versus back-end transactions, it’s clear that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac credit-risk transfer programs are here to stay and will only intensify, according to Bob Ryan, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s acting deputy director of the division of conservatorship. “The FHFA and the enterprises are committed to credit risk on a routine basis. It is not a pilot; it’s a routine part of our ongoing activity,” he said during a Bipartisan Policy Center seminar on mortgage finance reform. Ryan re-emphasized...

When the news broke about Stonegate this past summer, FBR issued a note to its clients saying that, “We expect the company has two options: hire a replacement CEO quickly, or sell the business altogether.”

The flow of FHA purchase mortgages jumped 37.7 percent from the second to the third quarter, and VA purchase mortgages rose 37.9 percent over the same period.

HLSS also misstated its net income in 2012, 2013 and the first quarter of 2014.

According to the offering circular, the collateral resides in all 50 states with Ohio having the highest chunk at a mere 8.1 percent.

Not only are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spending more money than they were a few years ago, but their proposed budgets are being submitted late, says the IG.

Where's the demand? Only seven jumbo MBS were priced during the third quarter.

On the conventional product, the loans have an average age of 23 months and delinquencies in the 3.0 percent range. Almost 80 percent of the loans are in California.