Mortgage workouts at Freddie Mac dropped to 14,000 in the first quarter from 35,000 a year ago and 50,000 in mid-2010. The change is attributed to a decrease in seriously delinquent loans to $72.8 billion in the first quarter from $82.1 billion a year earlier and to the transition of borrowers ineligible for HAMP to the new Standard Modification program. Freddie Mac also reported a jump in the number of modified loans that were current and...

WL Ross & Co.-owned mortgage servicer American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. is changing its name to Homeward Residential to reflect the company’s entrance into the correspondent and warehouse lending market. The servicing shop opened its correspondent and warehouse lending operations in October of 2011 and has expanded its business to assist clients with loan closing services, REO management, home valuation, special servicing,...

The loss-severity rate on 1998 vintage commercial mortgage-backed securities loans outpaced other vintage classes of CMBS, with the 1998 class recording $289 million in realized losses on an initial loan balance of $474 million, Treppsaid Friday. The CMBS analytics firm released its January loss-liquidation report for fixed-rate, U.S. conduit loans Friday. The report puts the vintage 1998 CMBS class at a loss-severity rate of 60.94%, making...

Multifamily loans backing commercial mortgage-backed securities are performing better than expected, but remain weighed down by the influence of rent-stabilized properties in New York, a Fitch Ratings report said Friday. “Multifamily loans, along with hotels, have rebounded by the most strides over the past two years,” said Huxley Somerville, managing director of Fitch Ratings. Somerville claims in a research note that...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is pulling back from plans to revise the minimum servicing fees paid on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, and it also reportedly has abandoned a proposal to adopt a “fee for service” compensation model. The planned overhaul had generated much criticism from servicing advisory firms, particularly because no guidance was issued as to what servicers would earn on delinquent loans.   The...