New Firms Catching Up to Banks in Foreclosure Rankings -
By MATTHEW GOLDSTEINMARCH 30, 2017
The number of home foreclosures is down sharply from the depths of the financial crisis, even as many of the mortgage
firms involved remain the same, including Fannie Mae, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.
These new entrants include firms affiliated with the private equity giant Lone Star Funds, the mortgage lender
PennyMac Loan Services, the investment bank Goldman Sachs and the mortgage firm Carrington Mortgage Services.
Lone Star, a $70 billion private equity firm based in Dallas, has been one of the largest buyers
and works in tandem with its wholly owned mortgage firm, Caliber Home Loans.
“Our best solution is keeping families in their homes with foreclosure as the last option, as evidenced by the 6,747 loan modifications
we completed last year,” said Stephen Hagey, a representative of PennyMac, a California-based mortgage firm.
He added that these new firms were “taking on the risk that the big banks want to distance themselves from as much as possible.”
Foreclosure activity in the United States stemming from the financial crisis peaked in 2010 with lenders foreclosing
and taking possession of about 835,000 homes, according to RealtyTrac.
