Two mortgage servicing industry experts speaking on complying in an industry where the laws are constantly changing – and getting tougher – compared keeping up with servicing standards to competing in a rodeo.

With so many single-family distressed homes out there on the market, real estate investors are aware of the need to choose carefully which homes to buy – and it's more than just the house itself that figures into the equation when buyers are making that determination.

A California man was convicted on several counts of fraud relating to a mortgage scam earlier in the week, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) Christy Romero announced earlier this week.

With the mortgage industry becoming more heavily regulated in the last four to five years, those who work within the industry have had to place an increased emphasis on compliance. But compliance does not come without a steep price – it takes a great deal of time, effort, and money.

The process of eviction has become more heavily regulated in recent years right along with the rest of the housing industry, mainly by the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) of 2009.

A panel of experts at the Servicing Lab at the Five Star Conference on Tuesday agreed that in order for loss mitigation to be effective in 2014 and heading into the future, servicers must find new and inventive ways to execute.

Speaking on the subject of "Engaging Borrowers on Their Terms" at the Servicing Lab as part of the Five Star Conference on Tuesday, Green Tree Servicing's SVP of business control and client management, Mark Atencio, pointed out the many similarities between a mortgage and a marriage.

One resounding theme of the Foreclosure Lab at the Five Star Conference on Monday was clear – throwing compliance into the equation has made the foreclosure process way more complicated than it used to be because the industry is so much more regulated than it was as recently as five years ago before the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act.

A former bank executive pleaded guilty last week to charges of defrauding regulators and his bank's investors, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) and other investigators announced recently.

The number of residential properties repossessed by lenders by way of foreclosure in August declined on a year-over-year basis for the 21st consecutive month, according to RealtyTrac's monthly U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for August 2014 released September 11.