Old Republic Cancels Recapitalization Plan for its Mortgage Guaranty Subsidiaries. Old Republic International Corp. has withdrawn plans to secure capital market funding for its beleaguered consumer credit indemnity and mortgage guaranty subsidiaries for lack of investor interest. Both business segments are housed within the Republic Financial Indemnity Group and have been in a run-off mode since 2008 and 2011, respectively. ORI Chairman/CEO Al Zucaro said holding company funds would be used to shore up the regulatory capital of the mortgage guaranty subsidiaries. The completion of the recapitalization plan hinged on regulatory approvals in North Carolina, Florida and Vermont, as well as from the government-sponsored enterprises and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. ORI said that with all the complications, it could not be certain of getting the necessary approvals. A primary investor concern is that new capital would be used to pay for RMIC’s legacy problems, and investors want their money to ...

In general, newly-created mortgage servicing rights are being valued at 4 to 4.5 times the servicing fee, which has become the industry norm of late, but there’s a school of thought that says lenders are being a bit too conservative in their “marks.” “Whether your company is public or private you have to be within [generally accepted accounting principles] on these valuations,” said Ken Richey, managing partner in Richey & Co., an accounting and advisory firm based in Englewood, CO. “GAAP dictates that you have to book it at fair value. But what’s fair value?” On a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loan, 4 times the servicing fees translates...

The top three HEL lenders in the market – Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase – originated a combined $17.8 billion in home-equity loans last year, but they still saw a $32.1 billion decline in their total holdings of HELOCs and closed-end seconds.

Then again, some lenders are taking a middle path, selling the MSR asset but continuing to work the loans as a subservicer.

The extended time on market for short sales does not appear to be due to a lack of demand, as short sales completed in February averaged 3.1 offers, based on a three-month moving average.

In a recent interview with IMFnews, Carrington Executive Vice President Ray Brousseau stressed that the privately held nonbank will carefully and manually underwrite the loans, which will be sourced through loan brokers.

Addressing CFPB officials at the American Bankers Association’s government relations conference in Washington, one community banker from Oklahoma reported survey findings that one-third of respondents in the state are no longer offering residential mortgages.

Nonbanks had an average of 400 loans per full-time employee in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to Fitch, up from about 300 loans per full time employee in the second half of 2012.

Fannie and Freddie issued $44.6 billion of single-family MBS in February, a 5.1 percent decline from January and a stunning 62.0 percent drop for the first two months of 2014 when compared to the same period in 2013.

CFPB watchers say the bureau’s broad examination authority and a database of more than 300,000 consumer complaints will provide a fertile pipeline for enforcement actions going forward.