Hisey, a former Fannie Mae executive, has been given the title of chief strategy and external affairs officer, a newly created position at the nonbank lender/servicer.

At least 46 vintage non-agency MBS took principal forbearance-related losses in March, according to industry analysts. The losses are a concern for investors because they were taken without warning, based on forbearance that happened well before March. Most of the deals taking retroactive forbearance losses in March were issued by Bear Stearns from 2005 through 2007 and were largely serviced by JPMorgan Chase, according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays Capital. Write-downs on the deals were as high as 6.8 percent for a single month. “When a servicer recognizes losses on loans previously modified with forbearance, it could significantly impact...

In the pre-crash days, newly created MSRs were selling at 6 and even 7 times the servicing fee. “I even saw prices of eight,” said Chuck Klein, managing partner for Mortgage Banking Solution.

One mortgage technology expert had this to say on the Ellie Mae shutdown: “This is going to get ugly. Real money is lost when you can’t close loans on time.”

Most industry fortune tellers expect the mortgage market to rebound somewhat as home-buying season warms up. (There are daffodils in Washington.)

One source familiar with Ellie Mae told IMFnews that the technology provider has a long list of potential acquisitions.

One executive, requesting his name not be used, said, “It completely wrecked our last day of the month. We were unable to sending closing packages, send disclosures, export files and such.”

Inside FHFA Lending also found another interesting trend: The top 50 HECM lenders are dominated by nonbanks, some of which are relatively new to the space.

Whatever happened to the sale of Cole Taylor Mortgage, which has been in the works for nine months or so? Good question. When we asked one source close to the deal, his response was this: “Think of the Energizer Bunny but with fairly old batteries.

Some banks and thrifts have been able to originate enough new mortgages to replace runoff from their portfolios, but the industry’s retained holdings of first-lien mortgages continued to decline in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Banks and thrifts held a total of $1.74 trillion in first-lien mortgages as of the end of 2013, down only 3.0 percent compared with the end of 2012 ... [Includes one data chart]