A class-action lawsuit filed last month in the Southern District of New York accusing the largest authorized dealers in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt bonds of engaging in a systematic price-fixing scheme just got a little more interesting.
A panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling filed earlier this month, found that a reseller of mortgage loans could demand that an originator repurchase defective loans, even though the contract between the two companies did not prescribe a specific timeframe within which the originator must cure any defects. The decision reversed a lower court’s ruling.
Redwood Trust last week announced that it would invest as much as $78 million in a partnership seeking to acquire up to $1 billion in floating rate light-renovation whole loans from Freddie Mac. The California-based real estate investment trust says it has already funded the partnership to the tune of $20 million.
The country’s fourth-largest subservicer, Mr. Cooper, will purchase IBM’s mortgage servicing subsidiary Seterus. The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2019, will give Mr. Cooper servicing rights to $24 billion in GSE mortgages as well as subservicing contracts for another $24 billion in loans. In addition, Mr. Cooper will acquire Seterus’ mortgage servicing platform.