The nation’s largest MBS-investing real estate investment trust, Annaly Capital Management, this week agreed to buy the third largest player in the market, setting off speculation among analysts and investors that the “mREIT” sector could be in for a healthy dose of consolidation. The New York-based Annaly said it would buy Hatteras Financial Corp., Winston-Salem, NC, for roughly $1.5 billion in cash and stock. At year end, Annaly ranked...
Some 59.6 percent of new issuance in the first quarter consisted of re-securitizations and deals backed by seasoned re-performing and nonperforming loans...
The source continued: “Fannie and Freddie have the right to put non-compliant loans back to the originator. Eventually, someone will ask whether they knowingly bought loans that had TRID violations…"
Real estate agents find realty websites more useful in generating homebuyer leads than websites operated by mortgage lenders, according to the results of a new survey conducted by Campbell Surveys and sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance. “Real estate information available online is causing a fundamental shift in lead sources for homebuyer agents,” said Tom Popik, research director for Campbell Surveys. “Real estate agents prefer online home-buying platforms over mortgage lenders for homebuyer leads.” An agent’s “sphere of influence/personal reputation” remains...
Over the past year, The Blackstone Group has been aggressively expanding into many facets of the mortgage business and is now ready to make what might be considered a bold move: investing and originating in residential loans that don’t meet the qualified-mortgage test. But just how big might Blackstone get? That’s hard to say at this point. A source inside the company, who spoke under the condition his name not be used, confirmed...
Although there hasn’t been a lot of good news on PHH of late, one analyst we spoke with noted a positive: “They still have plenty of cash on their books…”