RoundPoint Mortgage, a servicer with more than $41 billion of receivables on its books, is entertaining offers for the entire company, according to industry officials briefed on the matter. Moreover, servicing advisors contend that several large bulk servicing portfolios are ready to hit the market in what should turn out to be a busy late winter/early spring for both buyers and sellers of mortgage servicing rights. In a recent public disclosure, Ocwen Financial said...

Ocwen Financial may have to settle with investors in non-agency MBS it services to avoid having the underlying servicing rights being yanked away by a trustee, according to investors and analysts tracking the situation. Early this week, Ocwen attorney Richard Jacobsen sent a letter to the law firm of Gibbs & Bruns, sternly telling the attorneys for some of the RMBS holders that there is no basis for default under the trust agreements. Gibbs & Bruns is working...

Although Ocwen Financial is in regulatory hot water with California – a dicey proposition given the state’s importance to the mortgage industry – the nation’s fourth-largest servicer will continue with a strategy of non-agency MBS clean-up calls and Ginnie Mae buyouts. At least, that’s what company Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer John Britti told Inside MBS & ABS late this week. Britti confirmed continuance of the strategy, but declined to offer any new details or color. The big question, of course, is...

Ocwen’s plan to sell roughly $182 billion of agency servicing rights may have gone up in smoke this week after it was revealed that the California Department of Business Oversight could pull its mortgage licenses in the state. One servicing advisor, requesting anonymity, said the nonbank’s latest run-in with regulators “effectively put an illiquid label on all of their servicing rights.” Another advisor suggested...

Ocwen Financial agreed to a $150 million settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services in late December. Officials at the nonbank said Ocwen’s focus will shift to non-agency servicing and originations in 2015. The settlement includes a number of provisions beyond the monetary penalty. To acquire mortgage servicing rights – the fuel for Ocwen’s dramatic growth in recent years – Ocwen must receive approval from the NYDFS and meet performance benchmarks. The NYDFS will also appoint...

Ocwen Financial’s massive exit from the agency servicing market is expected to be a multi-year phase-out complicated by its past regulatory problems and a weak market for legacy product, according to industry advisors. If the company follows through on its promise to exit all segments of the agency market – Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae – it will wind up selling a hefty $182.51 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights, based on third quarter survey numbers submitted to Inside Mortgage Finance. At Sept. 30, the nonbank serviced...

In another example of multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional legal action, the CFPB and Florida’s Attorney General Office brought an enforcement against two student debt-relief companies accused of tricking borrowers into paying upfront fees for federal loan benefits. “We allege that both companies exploited vulnerable student loan borrowers, made false promises about their debt-relief services, and charged illegal upfront fees,” said CFPB Student Loan Ombudsman Rohit Chopra. The bureau and the Florida AG shut down Tampa-based student loan debt-relief company College Education Services, and its owners, Marcia Elena Vargas and Frank Liz, for allegedly scamming students into paying upfront fees for student loan debt consolidation, loan forgiveness, and relief from garnishments, services that were never provided or not performed as promised, according to ...

Production of FHA-insured jumbo loans ballooned in the third quarter of 2014 reflecting heightened activity in this loan segment during the period. A 23.7 percent quarter-over-quarter surge helped push FHA jumbo lenders’ total volume to $7.71 billion at the end of the nine-month period ending Sept. 30. It was a significant increase for a segment that represents only a sliver of FHA’s overall business. However, compared to last year’s first nine months, volume was down by almost half (48.8 percent) as lenders struggled to keep pace with last year’s output. Strong purchase demand helped drive FHA jumbo originations (all FHA loans over $417,000 up to $625,500 in high-cost areas), as purchase mortgages accounted for 81.1 percent of all FHA jumbos originated during the first nine months of the year. Fixed-rates comprised 86.4 percent of FHA jumbos originated during ... [1 chart]

The FHA and Ginnie Mae will share in the record-setting $16.7 billion settlement between Bank of America, the Department of Justice and certain other federal agencies and six states to resolve claims related to mortgage fraud and toxic mortgage-backed securities. The FHA will receive approximately $800 million and an undisclosed amount for consumer relief from BofA. The bank was accused of falsely certifying poorly underwritten loans for FHA insurance, resulting in huge losses for the agency. It is unclear how much Ginnie Mae’s share would be from the settlement. “As a direct endorser of FHA-insured loans, Bank of America performs a critical role in home lending,” said U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch for the Eastern District of New York during the announcement of the global settlement in August. “In obtaining a payment of $800 million and sweeping relief for troubled homeowners, we have not ...

State-regulated lenders and servicers will be required to report new information on servicing and originations to regulators beginning in the first quarter of 2015. Lenders weren’t able to win many concessions from the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, which proposed reporting changes for the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System & Registry’s Mortgage Call Reports in October. The State Regulatory Registry, a subsidiary of the CSBS that operates the NMLS on behalf of state regulators, positioned the reporting requirements as part of an effort to reduce regulatory burden for lenders. “A goal of the MCR is...