Fitch said the downgrade was tied to Green Tree’s “aggressive portfolio growth,” noting that the nonbank grew its MSR portfolio by almost three-fold over the past two years.

But when the letter first came to light one little fact was not readily known: that Devaney was also an Ocwen shareholder.

"There was a deal, but it went by the boards," said one source close to the servicer.

In a letter sent Sunday to trustees of the MBS, Ocwen tried to rebut claims made in January by BlackRock, PIMCO, Metropolitan Life and others...

Urban Institute's Karan Kaul noted that some banks have opted to keep mortgages that are eligible for sale to the GSEs.

Steady growth in the outstanding supply of agency single-family MBS offset the ongoing decline in non-agency MBS in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. Outstanding single-family MBS edged up 0.1 percent from the third quarter to finish the year at $6.357 trillion. Although that was the third straight quarterly gain, the yearend total still came up 0.6 percent short of the total outstanding at the end of 2013 ... [Includes one data chart]

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senate lawmakers this week urged the Federal Housing Finance Agency to move the budding common securitization platform for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “past the duopolistic tendencies of the past.” The FHFA originally directed the two government-sponsored enterprises to develop the CSP so that it would be open to and functional for all residential mortgage securitizers, but the agency last year detoured slightly ... [Includes one data chart]

A number of non-agency MBS investors with mezzanine and subordinate positions in deals serviced by Ocwen Financial support the troubled servicer, according to industry participants. The investors have pushed back against an effort by other investors holding senior tranches to get servicing transferred from Ocwen. “Ocwen is a critically important servicer in private-label residential MBS,” John Devaney, CEO of United Capital Markets, wrote in a recent letter ...

Returns on agency MBS are “uninspiring,” according to Thomas Siering, president and CEO of Two Harbors Investment, which has worked to diversify its assets, including putting an emphasis on jumbo conduit activities and commercial MBS. “We have a diversified business model and our operating platform obviates the need to jack up leverage to generate some return in the agency space because we think we can get attractive returns in ...

MBS investors – so far – are losing little sleep over the effect plunging oil prices might have on the market, even though delinquency rates in Texas are beginning to creep up. In some quarters of the industry, the fear is that a major (and further) correction in the energy sector will lead to massive layoffs in states dependent on oil, and that mortgagors, in time, will go delinquent on their loans. In turn, MBS and servicing rights that have a heavy concentration in ...