Ocwen Financial announced last week that it’s negotiating an agreement with New Residential Investment involving mortgage servicing rights for non-agency mortgages. The agreement would reduce the servicing fee Ocwen receives but provide the company some stability and an equity investment. Before the agreement, New Residential owned rights to MSR on mortgages serviced by Ocwen with an unpaid principal balance of $117.0 billion. The loans are in non-agency ...

Nonprime mortgages held by the government-sponsored enterprises continued a gradual decline in the first quarter of 2017, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held nonprime mortgages with a total unpaid principal balance of $133.89 billion at the end of the quarter, down 5.3 percent from the end of 2016 and down 22.1 percent from the first quarter of last year. The holdings are largely ... [Includes one data chart]

The Republican effort to reform many aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act was approved by the House Financial Services Committee last week on a party-line vote. The Financial CHOICE Act will likely be approved by the full House at some point, but DFA reform doesn’t appear to be a priority in the Senate. The House panel approved H.R. 10, the Financial Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs Act, on a 34-26 vote after a three-day markup ...

Wells Fargo is planning to issue non-agency mortgage-backed securities this year, Franklin Codel, a senior executive vice president of consumer lending at the bank, said during an investor presentation this week. It will be the first post-crisis non-agency MBS from Wells. He said the deals will help test whether Wells can improve investor confidence in non-agency MBS. Ellington Financial plans to issue a non-agency mortgage-backed security backed by ... [Includes four briefs]

The fix-and-flip market has been red hot the past few years…

Impac Mortgage is making major run at the non-QM market, advertising its products on cable TV…

PHH's new CEO, Robert Crowl, has a termination package that could be worth $4.54 million…

A Radian spokeswoman said the investigation “does not appear to be specific” to Green River Capital…

Much of the talk has centered on the GSEs aiding liquidity in the manufactured housing market...

One fact seems certain: there are more purchasers for non-agency/nonprime loans than a year ago with a handful of foreign and even U.S. banks contemplating acquisitions…