PHH Mortgage reveals MSR purchase agreement with AmeriHome

AmeriHome Mortgage has agreed to sell a bulk of its mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) to PHH Mortgage, a subsidiary of nonbank mortgage servicer and originator Ocwen Financial.

Ocwen Financial announced Tuesday that PHH Mortgage reached an agreement with AmeriHome to purchase roughly $48 billion in bulk MSR portfolio, made up of approximately 178,000 mortgage loans sold to or securitized by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

During Ocwen’s Q1 2021 earnings call, the firm disclosed it had entered into letters of intent for the bulk purchase of MSRs with a total unpaid principal balance of approximately $68 billion, including the $48 billion bulk MSR portfolio with AmeriHome.

“We are excited to announce the MSR purchase agreement with AmeriHome,” Glen Messina, president and CEO of Ocwen, said. “Overall, we are delivering very strong performance in adding new servicing across our originations channels, and this agreement is a significant milestone in achieving our growth objective of adding up to $150 billion in new servicing in 2021. We believe the execution of a bulk MSR transaction of this magnitude reflects the strength, quality and scalability of our servicing platform, and we look forward to welcoming our new customers to the Ocwen family.”

As of March 31, PHH serviced approximately 1.1 million loans, and this transaction is anticipated to grow its total servicing portfolio by approximately 16%. The company is still finalizing an agreement with the Western Alliance Bank to finance the MSR acquisition, but the deal is expected to close late in the second quarter. Once the deal is complete, the loans under the MSR portfolio will be transferred to PHH in September 2021.