On loans with LTVs ranging from 90 percent to 95 percent, for example, GSE pricing was better for all borrowers with credit scores over 620. But things are different now.

Wells Fargo was the largest Fannie/Freddie servicer at yearend with $791.0 billion, followed by Chase Home Finance ($429.1 billion) and Bank of America ($260.4 billion).

Securitization of income-property mortgages continued to post strong new issuance numbers in 2014, with the non-agency commercial MBS sector doing particularly well, according to a new market analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. A total of $164.77 billion of securities backed by commercial mortgages were issued last year, down just 0.6 percent from 2013’s level, which was the high-water mark since just before the financial collapse. And non-agency CMBS production was up 11.6 percent in 2014, at $96.48 billion. Agency MBS issuance fell...[Includes one data chart]

The European Central Bank’s launch of a Fed-like quantitative easing program will likely keep the yield spread flat and interest rates low. The ECB plans monthly purchases of €60 billion in ABS and covered bonds issued by central governments, agencies and banks in the euro zone. U.S. experts have been mulling...

Issued late this week, the latest guidance provides a new option for reverse mortgage lenders...

Global strategist Peter Schiff, who predicted the housing bust of 2007, sees danger ahead in the U.S. housing market.

The FHFA is spending much of its time studying both the liquidity of servicing rights and the operational capacity of GSE servicers.

The top five lenders in the industry accounted for 33.8 percent of total production last year, down from a combined 40.8 percent market share back in 2013.

More commonly, servicer event of default clauses are tied to the servicer’s financial condition...

Roughly $1.5 billion of the $2 billion in mortgages Altisource Residential held at Sept. 30 are in some stage of foreclosure.