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]

Radian will be finance the purchase through the issuance of debt. In 2013, Clayton had annual revenue of $135 million and net income of $9.1 million.

One of PHH’s largest private label clients is Merrill Lynch, which is owned by Bank of America.

Before joining the FHFA in late 2011, Hornsby spent 26 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the last 10 under Janet Yellen, who is now the nation’s central banker.

“They’re either going to shut their doors, merge or sell out to someone else,” one M&A advisor told Inside Mortgage Finance. “We could see 2,000 firms disappear.”

Beginning in December, the FHFA directly stepped into the MSR sales market, requiring its approval on all Fannie/Freddie transfers involving 5,000 loans or more. This additional level of approval initially caused concern in the market because it added another layer of oversight to sales.

Based on what Freddie's Layton said, one might think that going forward, the GSEs might barely break even. Maybe that’s why the GSEs – and not necessarily Mel Watt – want to hike their guaranty fees…

Did someone in the mortgage industry actually ask one of the GSEs recently to increase the 25 basis point servicing fee that it pays to residential servicers?

Several mid-sized nonbanks that earned a ton of money during the refi boom of the past two years are in the hunt to buy the production assets of other companies, hoping to snatch additional market share away from commercial banks. Moreover, some mortgage advisors that ply their trade in the mergers and acquisitions space believe that unless origination volumes improve rapidly, the “roll-up” of the mortgage industry could be fierce by the end of 2014. According to recent production figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, the residential finance industry is coming off its worst origination quarter in 14 years. Rick Roque, a principal in the boutique advisory firm Menlo Company Global, anticipates...

Since late last year, the FHFA has required that any Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac MSR sale of $5 billion or more – roughly 5,000 loans – be approved by the agency.