Nationstar made “right-party” contact with delinquent borrowers to determine their eligibility for HAMP in only 65 percent of such cases from March 2013 through February, the government found.

Banks were largely unwilling to sell off HEL holdings in 2013, according to MountainView Capital Group, an advisor on whole loan sales.

One REIT manager suggested that in time FHFA Director Mel Watt may move to eliminate the captive insurer/FHLB “loophole”…

The sphere of mortgage lending that will exist outside the parameters of the qualified-mortgage standard established by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau represents an attractive opportunity for both lenders and bond buyers, but skittish investors need to be won back before they return and participate to any significant degree. That was one of the key take-aways from a webinar sponsored this week by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated publication. Non-QM mortgages will exist...

It’s now believed that the legislation will clear the committee, but Majority Leader Harry Reid will not allow it to move any further because of weak support overall.

Non-QM mortgages will exist throughout the credit spectrum, according to Mitch Hochberg, a partner at Fenway Summer and general counsel at Ethos Lending, a start-up wholesale mortgage originator.

How much have their balance sheets shriveled over the years? In September 2008, the month in which Treasury placed the GSEs into conservatorship, Fannie alone had a gross mortgage portfolio of $761 billion

Overall, refi loans accounted for 45.7 percent of agency MBS production in the first four months of 2014, compared to 77.2 percent during the same period last year.

Although the pace of blockbuster servicing deals appears to have slowed, the giants of the mortgage-servicing business continued to leak market share in early 2014. Significantly, there is now just one lender with more than $1 trillion in mortgage servicing. Back in the third quarter of 2005, Countrywide Financial became the first company to amass over $1 trillion in mortgage servicing, and Wells Fargo joined the club by the end of that year. Chase Home Finance became a $1 trillion servicer in the fourth quarter of 2008, shortly after Bank of America took over Countrywide and became the first $2 trillion servicer. But BofA dumped...[Includes two data charts]

Fannie Mae reported nice guaranty fee income in first quarter, but as one former GSE executive told us: “Their expenses are out of control.”