A company many in the industry probably haven't heard of is set to become one of the nation's largest independent retail mortgage operations -- almost overnight. How? By snapping up all of the retail mortgage branches of troubled Indymac Bancorp Inc. [stock IMB][/stock], which disclosed only only day earlier that it would exit substantially all of its mortgage origination activity.

Regular HW readers know I come from the default management trenches -- knowledge that I suppose right now is more in demand than ever. (Yet, here I am blogging something completely free for you to read; but that's a story for another day). With that in mind, I read a story by Kate Berry at American Banker today with intense interest -- Fannie Mae is now apparently incenting its foreclosure attorneys to pursue workouts versus merely hitting a timeline: