Institutional investors are beginning to have major doubts about certain mortgage stocks, reducing their positions in companies such as PHH Corp. and Ocwen Financial as they struggle to present convincing evidence that better days are ahead – especially with 2016 just months away. Ocwen, in particular, has been savaged by investors over the past 18 months, its share price falling from an all-time high of $60 to $5.66. This past summer, Ocwen’s share price stabilized somewhat before getting clobbered early this week after disclosing that it expects to post a loss for all of 2015. For many investors it has...

A stable private mortgage insurance industry is expected to emerge as the residential real estate market continues its recovery but uncertainty related to new risk-based regulatory capital standards from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners could derail or hinder progress, according to a new analysis by Fitch Ratings. So far, the MI industry has returned to profitability with more stability in the market and the continued presence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the residential market. Stronger regulatory standards bode well for the industry’s stability as well, Fitch noted. The long-term viability of the MI industry does not appear...

Guaranteed Rate, a retail mortgage lender, continued to expand its business with the acquisition of new call centers and 75 loan officers from Discover Home Loans, which recently announced its decision to exit the mortgage origination business. The new loan officers will join Guaranteed Rate and help generate more loans through its new Digital Mortgage technology, which the company launched in June. The software uses encrypted cloud storage and ...

Commercial banks and thrifts continued to back away from the business of servicing home mortgages for other investors during the second quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call reports. At the end of June, the industry owned the servicing rights on $4.187 trillion of home loans held by other investors, typically as a result of mortgage securitization. That was down $94.2 billion from the previous quarter, a 2.2 percent decline ... [Includes one data chart]

Improved production efficiency and a favorable outcome on hedges for mortgage servicing rights helped drive a significant increase in mortgage banking profits during the second quarter. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that average net pretax income jumped 55.7 percent from the first quarter to $3.50 million in the second. That was the best pretax income figure since the first quarter of 2013, when the average in the MBA quarterly performance survey was ...

When autumn rolls around, most mortgage firms begin paring staff where they can and start focusing on what lies ahead for the new year. But this time around – thanks to the recent drop in rates – cost-cutting measures may be put on hold, at least for a little while. One area where there could be a spate of new hiring is in senior management positions. Rick Glass, who runs the mortgage recruiting firm RT Glass & Associates, Carmichael, CA, said his phone ...

Declines in negative equity and improvements to the economy have prompted a shift in the types of loan modifications offered by servicers. Industry analysts have raised concerns that the increased reliance on capitalization loan mods could lead to an increase in defaults. With a capitalization mod, servicers add unpaid mortgage interest and other costs to the unpaid loan balance and amortize the new balance, potentially with a new loan term or interest rate ...

Banks and thrifts repurchased $977.6 million of single-family mortgages during the second quarter of 2015, a 6.6 percent increase over the first quarter, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data. Bank repurchases, which include indemnifications, totaled $1.894 billion for the first half of the year, down 1.2 percent from the first six months of 2014. Bank of America still leads the industry in buybacks with $539 million on a ... [Includes one data chart]

The Mortgage Bankers Association ended its last fiscal year in the black with $7.7 million in net assets, a marked improvement from the negative $3.8 million it had when the year began. However, according to a review of MBA’s past tax returns by Inside Mortgage Finance, the trade group has its work cut out if it wants to return to the halcyon days before the housing bust when it boasted $63.3 million in net assets, a cushion that was depleted thanks to the industry’s downturn and a disastrous investment in a new headquarters building back in 2010. MBA officials continue...

Bank and thrift holdings of first-lien mortgages continued to grow in the second quarter of 2015, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis of call reports. Most of the change occurred among the top three bank mortgage portfolios: Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. Banks and thrifts held $1.81 trillion of first-lien mortgages as of the end of the second quarter of 2015. The holdings increased by 1.5 percent compared with ... [Includes one data chart]