Servicing

Flagstar Bancorp, Inc., announced a deal with Matrix Financial Services Corporation, a subsidiary of Two Harbors, an REIT. According to Flagstar's announcement, the agreement covers the sale of $40.7 billion in unpaid principal balance on residential MSRs, an amount making up about 55 percent of Flagstar's mortgage loans "serviced-for-others" portfolio. The pool of loans covered in the deal is made up of loans originated mostly after 2010 and serviced for Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae, the announcement says.

U.S. Bancorp announced the promotion of P.W. Bill Parker to the position of vice chairman and chief risk officer.

With only weeks left before the end of 2013, FDIC has added another tally to its list of the year's bank failures. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced Friday the closure of Texas Community Bank, National Association, in the Woodlands, Texas.

Mueller Reports, a provider of property data collection services operating out of New York state, announced its intentions to expand into the valuation space in 2014.

Fay Servicing, a Chicago-based special servicer, has earned stable outlooks from both S&P and Fitch Ratings.

Tom Lewis, founder and CEO of Arizona-based homebuilder T.W. Lewis Company, is the first-ever inductee in Professional Builder magazine's National Housing Quality (NHQ) Award Hall of Fame, the company announced.

In 1998, the top ten mortgage loan originators held around 40 percent of the market. By 2010, their share increased to nearly 80 percent; since then, it's dropped down to around 60 percent. Why the decrease? Because only five of the top 20 single-family mortgage originators in 2006 remain active today. So what's driving the big guys out--market cycles or market restructuring? And will the current trend of favoring smaller lenders last forever? Fannie Mae's Gerry Flood and Patrick Fischetti explored the topic in a recent commentary.

The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) of San Francisco has elected Pacific Premier Bancorp CEO Steven R. Gardner to its board of directors.

The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) has had laser sharp focus on ensuring foreclosure fraud offenders suffer the consequences of their offenses. A northern California man is now behind bars after a SIGTARP investigation found he used the U.S. bankruptcy courts to con desperate homeowners into paying him monthly fees to postpone foreclosure proceedings. He was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release on fraud charges.

Crowdsourcing caught fire as a vehicle for financing documentaries and small businesses. Now, the concept of pooled resources is being used as an investment vehicle offering equities in homeownership to investors and loan assistance to selected prospective homeowners. One of the first companies to offer such a program is PRIMARQ, a capital market company headed up by founder and CEO Steve Cinelli, who says equity deficiencies have become a major barrier for prospective homeowners.