Investment banking and mortgage executives believe the departures at MRP could mean that the industry’s battle against the use of eminent domain is over and that the strategy is now kaput.

The fast growing nonbank servicer/lender also disclosed a preliminary fourth quarter profit in the range of $101 million to $106 million, a 50 percent jump from the prior period.

The settlement covers damages suffered by Fannie Mae from misrepresentations Lehman was alleged to have made regarding the quality of non-agency product it sold to the GSE.

Through the first nine months of 2013, commercial banks sold $1.077 trillion of home mortgages, according to call-report data compiled by Inside Mortgage Trends.

The cost of mortgage compliance was a topic making the rounds at the recent ABS Vegas show in Nevada. Attendees, of course, wanted to know who might pay for all the new added costs.

If Flagstar changes hands, what might become of its loan broker business, the second largest in the nation?

Meanwhile, MountainView Servicing Group is also in the market with a new MSR offering: $224 million of receivables backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac product.

In fact, 10 of the 17 banks tracked by Inside Mortgage Trends posted increased mortgage-banking income during the final three months of 2013, and all of them reported a positive showing.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac combined did less business in single-family mortgage-backed securities in 2013 than the previous year while a growing share of business came from small and mid-sized lenders, according to an Inside The GSEs analysis. For the year, the two GSEs produced $1.161 trillion in single-family MBS, down 8.4 percent from their overall production in 2012.

A steady decline in GSE refinances throughout 2013 coupled with faltering purchase mortgage activity during the final third of the year helped contribute to an overall dip in the volume of single-family mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both on a month-to-month and year-end basis, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie issued $55.8 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities in December, a 4.9 percent decline from November.