Old-School Answers To New-School Problems
REQUIRED READING: For the default servicing industry, the ups and downs of the current mortgage crisis have prompted a great deal of introspection...
Nell Minow Examines Too-Sweet C-Suite Compensation
PERSON OF THE WEEK: It is somewhat difficult not to notice that the top executives of the nation's major corporations are not feeling...
Mr. Potato Head And Me
BLOG VIEW: I attended the recent Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary Market Conference, and I returned from that event with a score of new...
An Update On Reforms At The Federal Reserve
WORD ON THE STREET: The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) created the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to...
Shades Of Gray In Fair-Lending Examinations
REQUIRED READING: Federal regulators and law enforcement agencies have begun reviewing fair-lending practices in the context of mortgage servicing - a fairly recent...
Can Servicing Upgrades Restore Investors’ Confidence?
REQUIRED READING: The recent foreclosure mess has exposed the overdue need for changes and improvements in the U.S. residential mortgage servicing industry, to...
Dale McPherson Offers Property Preservation Observations
What will happen when the shadow inventory's release valve is turned? Volume, of course - lots and lots of volume. To get an...
Moving To A ‘.mobi’ Beat
BLOG VIEW: The other week, I saw a newspaper advertisement for Dime Bank of Norwich, Conn., that caught my attention. What stood out...
Community Banks Are Still Facing An Uphill Struggle
WORD ON THE STREET: Over the past several months, my fellow state regulators and I have heard the very loud concerns of community...
Reconsidering Data Integrity As A Secondary-Market Strategy
REQUIRED READING: Remember the days when many loan officers would introduce 'little white lies' on almost every file to help smooth out the...
Hybrid Valuations: Reliable, Maturing…And Here to Stay?
REQUIRED READING: When I think about the use of technology to value real estate, I often ponder about what the earliest attempts at...
How Low Can You Go? Agencies Revisit MSF Reductions
REQUIRED READING: With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's overseer leading the national dialogue pertaining to servicing-compensation reform, and the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) themselves...
David H. Stevens Meets A New York Gorilla
BLOG VIEW: It was ironic that the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) held its National Secondary Market Conference at New York's Marriott Marquis Hotel....
The CRL On The Implications, Consequences Of Risk-Retention Proposal
WORD ON THE STREET: In our view, the proposed rule on risk retention would squander an opportunity to ensure that well-structured, responsibly underwritten...
Mortgage Banking Meets Social Media
REQUIRED READING: When discussing the new dominance of social media in daily communications, Bob Dorsa is not shy about acknowledging his combined feelings...
Filmmaker Carolyn Coal Presents A Unique Affordable-Housing Story
PERSON OF THE WEEK: If often seems that affordable housing has always been something of a challenge for real estate finance professionals, government...
This Looks Like A Job For Leonard Nimoy
BLOG VIEW: Back when I was a kid in the 1970s, one of my favorite television programs was 'In Search Of�' This weekly...
MBA’s Cunningham On Risk-Retention Rulemaking
WORD ON THE STREET: It is no exaggeration to say that the proposed rule on risk retention will have profound effects on our...
Can Energy-Efficiency Performance Bonds Succeed Where The PACE Program Failed?
REQUIRED READING: Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs were designed to provide funding for energy retrofits and renewable energy projects around the country....
Fleshing Out QRM Questions
WORD ON THE STREET: As this committee is aware, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of six agencies...