Nationstar Mortgage, the nation's 11th largest servicer, is in talks to buy all or parts of Aurora Loan Services (ALS), according to industry advisors close to the situation.
Aurora, which has roughly $66 billion of servicing rights, has been for sale (on and off) for almost two years. Up until recently it was still originating new loans.
At press time officials from both companies had not returned telephone calls about the matter. ALS is based in Denver, Nationstar in Lewisville, Texas.
Nationstar, which is owned by the publicly traded Fortress Investments, has been quietly growing its servicing business the past two years and is an approved subservicer for Fannie Mae.
In the third quarter Nationstar was the fastest growing servicer in terms of MSR contracts with $92.5 billion, a 163% gain in 12 months.
ALS was once controlled by Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the fall of 2008. ALS and a bank affiliate were not part of the filing, but Lehman's trustee has ordered their sale.
