Loss Mitigation

Mortgage insurer Genworth Financial reported Wednesday that it saved nearly $3.4 billion in mortgages from foreclosure in the 12 months ending March 31, 2010. Mortgage dollars saved were up more than 81 percent from the same period last year. Over the last year, Genworth's U.S. mortgage insurance division worked with its lender partners and servicers to complete more than 23,000 mortgage workouts nationwide through its Homeowner Assistance Program.

Mortgage giant Freddie Mae is finding itself on the downward side of the delinquency arrow - and when it comes to delinquencies, the downside is an angle the GSE didn't see for a long three-year stretch. According to Freddie's monthly summary report released Tuesday, the company's single-family delinquency rate fell to 4.06 percent in April, down 7 basis points from March. It was the second straight month that the GSE has reported a decline in delinquencies.

HOPE LoanPort's roster of participants seems to be ever-growing. Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Delaware Valley, with 19 offices in the Philadelphia metro area, is the latest to join the more than 200 counseling agencies and 10 major servicers already committed to the new Web portal.

The nation's thrift industry posted profits of $1.82 billion in the first quarter of 2010. The Office of Thrift Supervision says the data indicates thrifts are stabilizing despite rising delinquencies and foreclosures. By definition, the thrift business involves taking deposits and originating home mortgages. The industry's non-current loans and repossessed real estate assets made up 3.27 percent of total holdings in Q1. Sixty-five percent of these troubled assets were residential mortgages, 27 percent were commercial real estate loans.

In order to provide mortgage lenders and their investors unprecedented assurances of appraisal quality and value accuracy, Solidifi U.S., a New York-based provider of full fee appraisal services, recently launched the Solidifi CoverageMAX and Solidifi CoveragePLUS insurance programs. Created in conjunction with Companion Specialty Insurance Group and Wells Fargo Special Risks, Inc., these appraisal warranty insurance programs aim to attend to the risk mitigation concerns of mortgage lenders and their investors.

Valligent has announced the introduction of V-Cert, which certifies that Valligent's desk reviews are completed in accordance with secondary market investor and rating agency requirements. The company says this new guarantee provides investors with confidence in the collateral value of the loans they purchase and shifts the collateral due diligence to the prior-to-funding stage.

NeighborWorks America announced Tuesday that it received $1 million from the Rockefeller Foundation in New York to support infrastructure development and technical upgrades for the organization's network of nonprofit housing counselors. NeighborWorks says the grant will help to strengthen and supplement its counseling capacity and increase the efficiency with which its community-based members are able to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Appraisal technology provider InHouse, Inc. has announced the launch of InHouse Connexions. The company says it's the industry's first technology for managing any combination of disparate appraisal vendors, including appraisal management companies (AMCs) and individual appraisers, from a single platform.

When the Senate passed the Wall Street reform package last week, it included a provision that uses $3 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds to reduce mortgage payments for those homeowners who have lost their job as a result of the nation's recession. The same measure already passed in the House's version of the financial reform bill and is modeled after a state program introduced by Rep. Chaka Fattah when he was a Pennsylvania state legislator.

DebtX, a full-service loan sale advisor based in Boston, announced Monday that it will sell approximately $500 million of mostly commercial real estate (CRE) loans on behalf of three financial institutions. ""Sellers are moving aggressively to dispose of loans and benefit from stronger balance sheets,"" said Kingsley Greenland, DebtX CEO. ""Investors have an opportunity to buy a wide range of both performing and non-performing loans from these sales.""