The reverse mortgage arena experienced another shake-up as SunTrust Bank, citing poor volume, quite the business even as J.G. Wentworth, the largest purchaser of future payment products, announced its entry into the market. Atlanta-based SunTrust stopped accepting new reverse mortgage applications as of Sept. 1, although it is continuing to process applications already in the pipeline. A statement from the bank indicated that low production volume was the reason for management’s decision to leave the reverse mortgage business and to focus resources instead on mortgage origination and servicing. The market also lost ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last week both “de-listed” PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. as an eligible private MI, a further blow to a private MI business that has been driven to the brink by the housing market collapse. Republic Mortgage Insurance Corp. was forced to stop writing new business this week as North Carolina regulators declined to extend a waiver of risk-capital ratios under which it had remained in the market. Together, PMI and RMIC accounted...

Lender Processing Services is disputing robo-signing allegations recently made against it and its DOCX LLC subsidiary in a lawsuit filed by American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. related to the surrogate signing practice at DOCX. “As LPS has previously disclosed, when it discovered the practice at DOCX, LPS immediately notified AHMSI of its discovery of the practice; immediately discontinued the practice; and voluntarily reviewed and remediated assignments of mortgage executed by DOCX using this practice,” LPS said. Once it completed the remediation in January 2010, LPS returned the remediated documents to the attorneys who had originally requested them on AHMSI’s behalf, the company said.

The tough economic and market environment that continues to pound many lenders is also creating opportunities for others, with PennyMac, Carrington and Ocwen among the most noteworthy ready to take advantage of a strong position in the marketplace. PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, the real estate investment trust (REIT) run by Stanford Kurland, the former president of Countrywide Financial Corp., plans to triple its mortgage lending through an expansion of its ...