Kate Berry

Bryan Sullivan, the CFO at LoanDepot, talks about its growth prospects without fuel from an initial public offering, how getting consumers to opt for home equity lines of credit is tough, and why he considers the nonbank a disruptor.

Prospect Mortgage, a Sherman Oaks, Calif., nonbank lender, has agreed to pay $10.1 million in borrower restitution and penalties for violating federal and state laws, California's Department of Business Oversight said Thursday.

Luther Burbank Savings, in Santa Rosa, Calif., has established three home loan programs aimed at helping low- and moderate-income borrowers afford to buy homes in nine California counties.

Freddie Mac Chief Executive Donald Layton insisted Tuesday that the government-sponsored enterprise showed "very strong fundamentals" in the third quarter, despite reporting a $501 million loss due to an accounting mismatch with its use of derivatives.

Freddie Mac posted a third quarter loss of $501 million, its first quarterly loss in four years, but the government-sponsored enterprise will not request a draw from the U.S. Treasury.

The government-sponsored enterprise is working to rebuild partnerships with church organizations and housing financing agencies as part of a broader effort to make owning a home affordable for low- and moderate-income families.

Bank of America has agreed to pay $335 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it misled shareholders about risky mortgages and its dependence on the electronic mortgage registry known as MERS.

The CFPB’s expanded data requirements for the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act will create a powerful tool for analyzing fair lending compliance. But some say the initiative is a massive overreach that could compromise borrower privacy.

Mortgage servicer Ocwen Financial failed four servicing tests in the second half of 2014. Joseph A. Smith Jr., the monitor of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, said the Atlanta servicer was “beginning to show progress” in complying with terms of the 2012 agreement.

Housing finance reform in Congress is stalled, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (often under pressure from their regulator) are forming partnerships, developing new products and finding ways to share risk with the private sector to correct flaws in the housing system.

Mortgage servicers have gotten a rare reprieve from the Federal Housing Administration.

Next year Fannie will require that mortgage lenders use so-called trended credit data for all mortgage borrowers, a move it says could broaden access to credit.

Profit margins in JPMorgan Chase's mortgage banking unit were down in the third quarter, primarily due to the shift in the mix from refinance activity to home purchases, and from retail loan originations to correspondent lending.

It's hard to decide which is more surprising: that the largest U.S. bank has almost abandoned the business of making home loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, that lots of big banks could be right behind it, or that the FHA might not even need to care.

Wells Fargo is raising minimum credit score requirements on Federal Housing Administration loans, part of the ongoing jockeying by large banks to limit lawsuits by the Justice Department for defective FHA loans.

Wells Fargo has named Michael DeVito head of mortgage production, making him responsible for its retail and correspondent lending divisions.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data set to be released in the next few weeks will offer new proof that mortgage lending activity was stronger than expected last year. That fresh data, the likely delay in Fed action on rates and other factors could prompt higher volume estimates for 2015.

Walter Investment Management has received approval from Freddie Mac to hold the mortgage servicing rights on $3.3 billion in residential mortgage loans.

The Federal Housing Administration has resolved a long-standing conflict with municipalities and private companies that back "green energy" loans that is expected to benefit banks and other mortgage lenders. The next question is whether the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages will do the same.

The global market turmoil could be good for mortgage lenders if a further drop in long-term interest rates sparks another refinancing wave. It also could spell trouble for those that have not properly hedged their servicing rights.