One of our objectives when performing transfer support services is to bundle our
services to provide a comprehensive and efficient solution to our clients.
Mortgage Market Needs Changes
A leading analyst sees many changes needed in the mortgage market. One of those changes is higher interest rates.
Meredith Whitney, founder and chief executive officer of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group noted that the Federal Reserve is evenly divided between raising rates and not raising rates.
But low rates haven't done much for the mortgage market because borrowers can't qualify or don't have enough equity.
GSE Execs Rack Up Tens of Millions in Legal Expenses
An inspector general report examined legal fees being paid on behalf of former senior executives of the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. One way that the two government-controlled enterprises can cut back on legal expenses is to stay all litigation until they are out of conservatorship since neither will ever be in a position to pay such fees.
The report highlighted the case of three former executives of Fannie Mae -- including its former chief executives officer, chief financial officer and controller -- who are accused of engaging in practices to artificially inflate the company's stock price.
The three settled with the Federal Housing Finance Agency's predecessor, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, in August 2008 for a combined $31 million.
HUD Clarifies HAMP Credits Toward Settlement
While some principal reduction on mortgages with government loan modifications can be credited towards the recent mortgage servicer settlement, the vast majority of loans modified under the federal program won't be eligible.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development says that incentives paid to servicers under the Home Affordable Modification Program cannot be used as credit towards the massive mortgage servicer settlement announced on Feb. 9.
HUD was responding to a news article that an article in the
Financial Times that, it says, argues HAMP subsidies are being used for credit under the settlement.
Mortgage Bankers Raise Origination Outlook
Home lenders cut their outlook for the volume of home purchases expected to be financed this year. But an increase in projected refinance production was enough to push the overall outlook higher.
The latest mortgage production forecast has first-quarter residential originations 6 percent higher than was predicted last month.
Even expected second-quarter financing was increased 2 percent.
Apartment Loan Performance Leads CMBS Improvement
Led by improving multifamily performance, past-due payments on securitized commercial mortgages retreated -- though so did the overall amount outstanding.
Delinquency of at least 60 days on loans that are part of conduit-fusion commercial mortgage-backed securities was 2 basis points better during January than in December.
But late payments on securitized commercial mortgages have worsened 29 BPS from January 2011.
Assignment preparation.
Information necessary to prepare assignments of mortgage to the buyer of the servicing rights
or to MERS, if applicable, is captured, optically imaged, edit tested and assignments are
prepared and executed, often in-house with an appropraite power of attorney from the seller
and in the case of agency assignments, the buyer. Finally, the assignments are recorded
in the applicable recording jurisdiction and their return and delivery are tracked.
Data transfer support.
Data from the seller's system is received and formatted to meet the buyer's requirements and delivered.
In many cases, optical images rather than or in addition
to hard copy files are formatted to the buyer's specifications and delivered.
Physical file transfer support.
Hardcopy collateral and servicing files are inventoried, arranged and delivered to the buyer's or custodian's specifications in the servicing transfer instructions
and transmittals reflecting their delivered status are executed and provided to the seller. In most instances we barcode the files for our clients and provide an inventory
database for ongoing usage.
Exception clearing file review and document recovery "holdback release" review.
Collateral files and, in some cases, servicing files are reviewed to initially determine the accuracy of custodial reports. In most cases, these reviews uncover inaccuracies
in custodial reports of around 20-35% of noted exceptions. We work with the custodian to "clean up" the exception report and the data elements necessary to recover, reproduce
or correct remaining exceptions are then captured from the collateral or servicing files. Finally, documents are requested and recovered from county recording offices, settlement
agents and correspondent lenders. This service is particularly appealing to the sellers of servicing rights eager to have document related holdback funds released.
