Bond investing giant PIMCO has quietly purchased First Guaranty Mortgage Corp., Frederick, MD, for roughly $50 million, gaining a toehold into an industry it has been carefully eyeing for well over two years now. The acquisition – confirmed to Inside Mortgage Finance by several sources – comes roughly three months after the company pulled out of talks with RoundPoint Mortgage, the nation’s 24th largest servicer. PIMCO – formally known as Pacific Investment Management Co. – has tried...

For many investors it has boiled down to this: They’ve had enough and they want out.

All of the servicing rights being auctioned off are currently being subserviced by Cenlar.

One frequent participant on the buy-side of MSR deals called the current price structure “fair” and below the “overheated” level that buyers witnessed a year ago.

Early this year, PIMCO was in talks to buy RoundPoint Mortgage, a top 25-ranked servicer, but the transaction fell apart.

The Fannie/Freddie loans are dominated by Florida mortgages at 32 percent of the flow.

Ocwen Financial continues to sell servicing rights and pay down debt. But its stock price isn't moving very much.

loanDepot founder and CEO Anthony Hsieh is well known for starting companies, building them up and then selling them.

What do Fannie/Freddie officials say about the walk-out? They were amused at the effort but declined to comment on-the-record.

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...