It's not every day that a REIT gains access to a Federal Home Loan Bank. This REIT, of course, likes to buy mortgage servicing rights.

As an industry, banks assigned a fair-market value of $48.4 billion to their mortgage servicing rights, according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Trends.

A few months back top executives at RFC denied to Inside Mortgage Finance that a sale was in the works.

Sales of several bulk portfolios of mortgage servicing rights were still pending as yearend approached, with talk increasing about a busy year in the mergers and acquisitions market for 2014. As always, the driver of such talk was interest rates: Higher rates are causing MSRs to increase in value, while a slowdown in refinancing is scaring many under-capitalized nonbanks into considering the once-unthinkable: selling out or partnering with a competitor. Originations are...

It may sound complicated, but it appears that Nationstar is selling a portion of its MSR fee on certain rights so it can deleverage and buy even more servicing.

Advisors note that Walter should be concerned that it has a large MSR portfolio – $194 billion at Sept. 30, according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance – but a relatively small origination platform.

Want to sell a large chunk of MSRs? If it's Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac product you'll have to run the deal past the FHFA.

A ton of new servicing deals have hit the market. But will regulatory scrutiny throw a monkey wrench into the transactions?

Although there are only a few weeks left in 2013, a few large mortgage servicing deals may get done yet.

Bexil American Mortgage and its subsidiary appear to be in a growth mode. They're looking to buy a retail lender and MSRs.