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