Note 6 – Advances

Advances, net, representing payments made on behalf of borrowers or on foreclosed properties, consisted of the following at the dates indicated:



	June 30, 2014		December 31, 2013
Servicing:
Principal and interest	$	194,320	$	141,307
Taxes and insurance	434,800		477,039
Foreclosures, bankruptcy and other	311,455		268,053
	940,575		886,399
Corporate Items and Other	5,234		4,433
	$	945,809	$	890,832

The following table summarizes the activity in advances for the six months ended June 30:



	2014			2013
Beginning balance	$	890,832		$	184,463
Acquisitions (1)	99,318			267,852
Transfers to match funded advances	(10,156		)	—
Sales of advances to HLSS (2)	—			(61,673		)
New advances, net of collections	(34,185		)	86,215
Ending balance	$	945,809		$	476,857


(1)	Servicing advances acquired through business acquisitions and asset acquisitions, primarily in connection with the acquisition of MSRs. See Note 3 – Business Acquisitions, Note 5 – Loans Held for Sale and Note 8 – Mortgage Servicing for additional information.

(2)

We periodically sell Rights to MSRs and the related servicing advances to HLSS. The related advance sales generally meet the requirements for sale accounting and are derecognized from our financial statements at the time of the sale. In connection with the Ginnie Mae EBO Transactions completed during 2014, we transferred advances related to certain FHA-insured mortgage loans to HLSS Mortgage and HLSS SEZ LP in transactions which did not qualify as sales for accounting purposes. See Note 4 – Fair Value and Note 5 – Loans Held for Sale for additional information.