Tag Archives: Ocwen

Nationstar Mortgage has agreed to pay $77 million to settle class-action suits filed by homeowners over the alleged inflating of homeowner insurance rates.

Philadelphia-based LL Funds, which manages more than $1.5 billion market value non-Agency residential mortgage-backed securities, said in the white paper released Friday that the institutional investors' claims of non-performance on the part of Ocwen, made through law firm Gibbs and Bruns, are flawed.

Ocwen also reported that an additional 284,089 borrowers had either started a trial modification or were offered or approved for a trial modification by the end of Q4. These were Ocwen's self-reported numbers and they have not been credited by the monitor as of yet.

The downgrade comes after Ocwen Financial announced they would be selling $9.6 billion worth of servicing rights to Green Tree. Fitch said the downgrade is tied to Green Tree having had aggressive portfolio growth in the past two years in a press release.

This will be the second time in as many months that Ocwen has announced an MSR sale on an Agency portfolio of residential loans to Dallas, Texas-based Nationstar. In February, Ocwen announced its intention to sell the MSR on a portfolio of about 81,000 performing residential loans owned by Freddie Mac with a UPB of about $9.8 billion to Nationstar. Combined, the two MSR deals between Ocwen and Nationstar announced in the last two months include about 223,00 Agency residential mortgage loans with $34.8 billion in UPB.

In January, a group of Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) investors including BlackRock Financial Management Inc., Pacific Investment Management Company LLC, Kore Advisors, and Metropolitan Life Insurance issued a notice on Ocwen’s alleged non-performance. Ocwen claims the notice is a part of a long campaign by the RMBS investors to force more home foreclosures and less loan modifications.

In an update on its website dated March 2, Ocwen announced that it had "signed a letter of intent with a buyer on the sale of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) on a portfolio consisting of approximately 277,000 performing Agency loans owned by Fannie Mae with a total unpaid principal balance of approximately $45 billion."

There are approximately 81,000 loans in the portfolio involved in the transaction, according to Ocwen's announcement. The transaction is subject to a definitive agreement as well as approval from Freddie Mac as well as Freddie Mac's conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

Morningstar's announcement came just one day after Ocwen CEO Ron Faris told his company's stakeholders that he expected Ocwen's earnings in Q4 to take a hit based on mounting regulatory pressures, expenses, and a ratings downgrade by Fitch Ratings in the week.

In a note to stakeholders released Thursday, Faris reviewed a handful of the regulatory hurdles Ocwen has had to deal with in the past year, including a long-running investigation from New York's top financial regulator that eventually resulted in a $150 million settlement.