Ocwen Financial’s pending purchase of subprime servicer Saxon Mortgage is just the latest growth spurt for the firm. “We are looking at other transactions as we speak,” William Erbey, chairman of Ocwen, said last week on a call with investors. Even with the Saxon deal, Erbey said Ocwen’s pipeline of potential acquisitions increased in the third quarter of 2011 compared with the previous quarter, to more than $300.0 billion in unpaid principal balance. ...

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their federal regulator are facing considerable negative pushback from the mortgage industry about their controversial plan to change the economics of the mortgage servicing industry. The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the government-sponsored enterprises are trying to come up with a system that will provide more resources for servicing distressed loans and reduce the volatility lenders face as a result of carrying mortgage servicing right assets on their books. In addition to ultimately improving servicing quality for GSE loans and reducing default losses, the agencies appear to...

With home sales slow, house prices still floundering and little lender appetite for cash-out refinancing, the mortgage servicing business may be another year or more away from reversing the historic contraction that’s been underway since early 2008. But a new servicing ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance reveals that some companies have managed to grow their business. Servicing remains a top-heavy industry dominated by three companies that collectively held 47.8 percent of the market as of the end of September. But only one of those firms – second-ranked Wells Fargo – has seen its servicing portfolio...(Includes one data chart)

With the clock running down on the Home Affordable Modification Program and disappointing results so far, a new government watchdog report urges the Treasury Department to put more pressure on mortgage servicers. Only 5.4 percent of the $45.6 billion set aside for HAMP has been spent so far, said a new report by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. With less than a year left until HAMP expires, the program has helped approximately 25,000 to 30,000 homeowners a month with new permanent mortgage modifications. Treasury estimated that nearly 1 million homeowners are still...

Now that the long-awaited revision of the Home Affordable Refinance Program is out of the way, look for the Federal Housing Finance Agency to redouble its efforts to discharge the government’s backlog of real estate owned properties with all deliberate speed. During an interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program last weekend, FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco said the agencies are sifting through over 4,000 comment letters on the proposed REO bulk sales program. “Now that we have the HARP announcement out, we are turning to this as the next priority,” said DeMarco. “We do think we will have some good...

Overwhelmed by the tidal wave of foreclosures and under intense scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators, the mortgage industry and default servicers in particular are being challenged like never before to keep up with complex, ever-changing compliance rules and they are in dire need of a technology solution to keep up with the changes. Compliance technology vendors such as Irvine, CA-based DecisionReady are striving to keep up with the demands of their clients, who may not exactly know what they want but know they need a solution that keeps them connected and on top of the latest legal and procedural changes, according to...

Although Obama administration officials said this week that principal reduction would play a large role in the multistate foreclosure settlement under negotiation, sources suggest that sorting out potential writedowns will be complex and that the settlement will focus on other issues. During a press conference on the revamped Home Affordable Refinance Program this week, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said principal reductions would be a big part of a settlement that was rumored to be close to completion. “The settlement negotiation is also going to be focused on significantly accelerating the...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been called upon to take the lead in investigating allegations that a number of the largest mortgage lenders in the country may have systematically charged illegal fees to military veterans who refinanced their homes. Sen. Jon Tester, D-MT, a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, sent a letter to Holder recently requesting he get involved in a probe to determine the veracity of the accusations. Earlier this month, a complaint was unsealed in federal court in which two whistleblower types accused the lenders of charging refinance fees that are...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued the first iteration of its supervision and examination manual, along with its examination procedures for mortgage servicing, in part so that financial services providers know what to expect during their examinations. The first section of the manual describes the CFPB’s compliance supervision and examination process. The second part outlines the bureau's examination procedures, including both general instructions and procedures for determining compliance with specific regulations. The final section provides templates for reporting risk assessments, examination results and supervision plans.

The performance of large mortgage servicers of non-agency residential MBS, including their ability to prevent or cure loan delinquencies, varied widely during the 12 months ending in June 2011, due in no small part to foreclosure moratoria imposed on some, but not all, servicers, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The company’s inaugural Servicer Dashboard report found that during the June 2010 to June 2011 period, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America exhibited overall poor servicing performance in contrast to CitiMortgage, GMAC and Ocwen. A major impediment to Chase and BofA’s servicing performance, Moody’s noted, was the fact that...