Over the past two years, Marlin Mortgage has made a name for itself as a buyer of conventional servicing rights. Now it is ready to pounce in the Ginnie market. A new proposed company acquisition may help.

Implementation of Ginnie’s risk-based capital requirements delayed; Fitch downgrades ratings of Finance of America, Provident; foreclosure starts decline; new alerts in Freddie’s Loan Advisor dashboard; MISMO seeks comments on three proposals; Staircase offers MSR transfer automation; LoanCare launches HELOC servicing; new LO recruitment tool.

Rumor has it that Frank Martell was brought on as CEO of loanDepot to cut it down to size and sell it. Can he? Will he? Stay tuned.

The California-based mortgage servicer also exited correspondent lending.

Stakeholders talk about the challenges in sharing MISMO datasets between different parts of the industry.

MCT and Freddie Mac experts discussed the strategies of managing MSR assets. While some firms are interested in the best financial deal they can get, others are focused on retaining clients.

Home prices depreciated in July; foreclosure starts near pre-pandemic levels in August; mortgage rate locks continued downward trend in August; applications for mortgages on second homes fall to pre-pandemic levels; Experian allowing renters to boost their credit scores.

Many publicly traded mortgage companies remained profitable in the second quarter, though earnings were down sharply. (Includes data chart.)

Rising interest rates increased the fair value of banks’ MSRs in the second quarter but servicing for others was essentially flat. (Includes data chart.)

Before the pandemic, lenders sold their MSR 80% of the time but after COVID, they retained 70% of their MSRs. Now, the split is 55/45.