Ocwen Financial Corp. is poised to significantly expand its mortgage servicing business with the acquisition of Litton Loan Servicing from Goldman Sachs Group for approximately $264 million. The sale price does not reflect certain assets that Goldman will retain, the investment bank said in a June 6 statement announcing the deal. The bank did not specify which assets would be excluded from the transaction. The planned sale will end...

The federal government will likely turn a profit on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS purchased by the Treasury Department in the wake of the collapse of the two government-sponsored enterprises in September 2008. Treasury said it received an additional $12.9 billion during the month of May in proceeds from its agency MBS investment, through sales with a market value of $10.5 billion ($10.0 billion principal value) and principal and interest payments of $2.4 billion. Through the end of May 2011, taxpayers have received...

Bank executives expect it will be a tall order for their firms to address the various tax implications of the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as the Basel III liquidity standards, particularly with regard to securitizations, according to a recent survey by audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG. KPMG reported that 48 percent of respondents said their firms were still trying to figure out the tax implications of Dodd-Frank and Basel III, while 49 percent said...

The increasing return of private capital to the mortgage market that is expected to materialize post Dodd-Frank will provide plenty of opportunity for mortgage real estate investment trusts, with those investing in agency MBS likely to face a particularly low-risk environment, some leading financial services analysts suggest. gWe believe that the increased privatization of the mortgage market combined with the risk retention requirements of the equalified residential mortgagef will create...

Rating agency DBRS has clarified its position on several key provisions following a review of market comments on its exposure draft on third-party due diligence criteria for U.S. residential MBS. Not all firms can produce 36 months of payment history on seasoned home loans, particularly with respect to recently purchased home loans. Hence, verification of the pay histories of loans seasoned more than 18 months up to less than 36 months will be allowed...

Backed by a significant amount of collateral from older deals, the rebound in commercial MBS activity has taken on a different look than the pre-crash market, experts say. The “CMBS 2.0” market is expected...

Even as securitization market watchers in both the U.S. and the European Union attempt to reconcile each other’s new and evolving risk-retention rules, experts warn that an obscure provision of the Dodd-Frank Act could complicate...

As the FHA’s capital reserve level dwindled in 2009 and the program’s share of the mortgage market gradually rose, Department of Housing and Urban Development officials repeatedly stated that ridding the program of bad lenders was...[Includes one graph]

Private mortgage insurers have been slowly staging a comeback, taking market share from the FHA over the past year. With the annual premium on FHA loans increasing Monday, several private MIs look to be turning up the heat. As of early this week, FHA mortgages with loan-to-value ratios at or below 95 percent will carry...

On the heels of an AARP lawsuit against the Department of Housing and Urban Development relating to recent rule changes to the FHA’s reverse mortgage program, two House Democrats asked the agency to revisit its policies on borrowers’ surviving spouses. Longstanding HUD rules dating back to 1989 say...