Mortgage real estate investment trusts can draw some guidance from a recent private-letter ruling from the Internal Revenue Service on whether excess spread on mortgage servicing rights can be deemed as real-estate assets for REIT purposes. According to a recently released IRS private-letter ruling dated April 12, certain excess servicing rights would constitute a real-estate asset, and income from the spread would be treated as interest on obligations secured by mortgages on real property, for purposes of tax rules governing REITs. MSRs generally represent...