Morgan Stanley, a worldwide investment firm that is headquartered in New York, has had ongoing legal troubles in the last year or so with regards to its sales of RMBS prior to the financial crisis, resulting in a series of settlements totaling hundreds of millions.

In response to accusations from institutional investors against Ocwen Financial of "failure to perform," investment advisor LL Funds has come to the defense of the embattled mortgage servicer in the form of an independent 26-page white paper titled "In Defense of Ocwen Servicing" released Friday.

Under the new rules, loan servicers are required to delay foreclosure on a home for a year and evaluate all borrowers facing foreclosure for participation in the government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) or a similar loss mitigation program. Loan servicers could previously foreclose on a home six months after they received the loan and were not required to evaluate borrowers for loss mitigation programs, though they were encouraged to do so.

Counsel's Corner is an ongoing series in which DS News talks with default servicing attorneys around the country about the most pressing issues facing the default servicing industry. This installment features Kristin Schuler-Hintz from the Nevada office of McCarthy Holthus.

The higher risk for first-time buyers can be attributed in large part to risk layering, according to AEI. In March, 68 percent of mortgages for first time buyers had a combined LTV of 95 percent of higher and 96 percent of those mortgages had a 30-year term.

Less than a week after Quicken Loans sued the Department of Justice and HUD, accusing them of coercing the Detroit-based lender into making false statements, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Quicken accusing the lender of improperly originating and underwriting FHA-insured mortgages, according to an announcement from the DOJ on Thursday afternoon.

While the demand for high-quality mortgage-backed securities has been slow since the housing crisis, Fitch said that more major institutional buyers that are hungry for new, higher-yielding investment opportunities have emerged as suitors for bulk NPL pools. Previously, distressed mortgage buyers tended to be specialized alternative investment firms.

The latest offering, STACR Series 2015-DNA1, represents a couple of firsts for Freddie Mac's STACR program: it is the enterprise's first transaction in which losses will be allocated based on actual losses realized on related reference obligations instead of using a fixed severity approach to allocate losses.

Bank of America was ordered to pay a $1.27 billion civil penalty in July 2014 as a result of its alleged role in the Hustle case. The bank has been fighting to overturn that verdict since, claiming that the Hustle program ended prior to its July 2008 acquisition of Countrywide. Rakoff rejected a motion by the bank to have the verdict reversed in early February. He also rejected the bank's motion for a new trial at that time.

Sharga also noted that while the 5.31 million target number for April is up both month-over-month and year-over-year, a truly healthy housing market would be on a pace for about six million in existing home sales annually. He said the annual rate of existing home sales will probably continue at about the five million range for the next year.