News

As part of an effort to provide technology solutions for RESPA challenges, Caliber Funding, LLC, a national wholesale and retail lender based in Tucson, Arizona, has launched an originator forms feature on its proprietary software system, H2Online. The new feature provides fully-completed, signature-ready documents with a single click, the company said.

The delinquent unpaid balance for commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) increased to $47.82 billion in February, according to investment rating agency Realpoint, LLC. The overall delinquent unpaid balance was up almost 300 percent from February 2009, when only $11.98 billion was reported. Last month's numbers represent a delinquency ratio of 6 percent, and Realpoint says it expects the growth trend to continue, potentially reaching 12 percent by year-end.

The Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance has taken control of mortgage bond insurer Ambac Assurance Corp.'s ""most troubled holdings,"" as the insurance commissioner phrased it. The commandeering occurred last week, as rumors began to surface that the company may be headed for bankruptcy, which could trigger billions of dollars in losses for municipalities who invested in mortgage securities insured by Ambac.

Home prices in the U.S. rose again in January, marking the eighth consecutive month of increases, Standard & Poor's closely-watched index showed Tuesday. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the 10-city and 20-city composites edged up 0.4 percent and 0.3 percent. The company also pointed out that its year-over-year readings were the closest they've been to an increase in nearly three years, with the 10-city price index unchanged versus where it was a year ago, and the 20-city composite down only 0.7 percent.

Marshall & Ilsley Corporation (M&I), a diversified financial services corporation headquartered in Milwaukee, announced Monday that it has extended its foreclosure moratorium an additional 90 days - through June 30, 2010. The moratorium is on all owner-occupied residential loans for customers who agree to work in good faith to reach a successful repayment agreement, and it applies to applicable loans in all M&I markets.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced Monday that it is ready sell off its 27 percent ownership stake in Citigroup. The Wall Street bank was one of the biggest bailout recipients among financial institutions, and the government is expected to turn a pretty penny for its efforts to keep Citi afloat - a net of more than $8 billion, according to preliminary estimates. Treasury said it plans to fully dispose of its 7.7 billion shares of Citigroup common stock by the end of the year.

In hopes of stimulating the local housing market, Broward County in South Florida, which had the state's third-highest foreclosure rate in February, recently launched a new Web site to auction off foreclosed homes. The first online auction will take place on March 30, 2010.

First American CoreLogic estimates that the typical underwater homeowner will not begin to surface until late 2015 to early 2016. It's an even longer stretch for some of the most depressed markets, where the company says the typical borrower in negative equity may not experience positive equity until 2020 or later. Of the markets studied, the Washington D.C. area is expected to return to positive territory first, while homeowners in Detroit will have the longest duration of negative equity.

The Treasury Department's supplemental directives for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) have placed increased requirements on lenders and servicers helping distressed borrowers. But Houston-based Stewart Lender Services (SLS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stewart Title Company, recently announced its ability to help national lenders and services comply with these directives in a timely, cost-effective manner.

For many investors, owner-occupancy is considered to be a leading indicator of loan and deal performance and an important criterion for determining if loans are eligible for modification. But according to Equifax Capital Markets, owner-occupancy data reported at origination is typically out of date, and increased mortgage fraud among recent loan vintages has called this information into question.