Paul Muolo

The mortgage division of MetLife has been going great guns in residential finance for two years now. Not only is the bank/insurance company the 12th largest residential funder in the U.S., it has a strong presence in correspondent, warehouse finance, and reverses. So why is the parent company now peddling the mortgage division?

The Department of Housing and Urban Development late Wednesday said it suspended former LendAmerica president Michael Primeau from conducting any business with the agency after his admission that he engaged in a "wide-scale mortgage fraud scheme."

Community Trust Bank, Dallas, ended September with $288 million of warehouse commitments on its books, a three-fold increase from a year ago.

John Robbins, the ageless former chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, is reentering the residential finance business with a new company called Bexil American Mortgage, a retail/wholesale lender. But will it actually service loans?

Mortgage applications increased by just over 1% for the week ending October 7, with refinancings remaining steady at about 79% of all new business.

Genpact Ltd., Chicago, said Monday it has acquired High Performance Partners and its Quantum Mortgage Technology platform for an undisclosed amount.

It's only been 10 days, but lenders in the primary market are starting to feel the effects of lower GSE loan limits. Ilan Awerbach, a vice president at UniTrust Mortgage of San Diego tells us that the "lower loan limits are definitely being felt here in California -- as I imagine they are on both coasts."

This past week National Mortgage News broke several updates on the bank, including its decision to exit FHA/VA cash-out refis, the collapse of talks with Fortress over its correspondent unit, its decision to exit six states, and the departure of one of its top retail LOs, Kevin Budde.

A growing number of community banks are entering the warehouse lending arena for two obvious reasons: the returns are good and it appears the risks are low, at least for now. In general, underwriting standards are so tight that the probability of a loan default is the smallest it's been in decades.

Credit rating agency DBRS this week approved American Mortgage Consultants, New York, as a third-party due diligence provider for residential MBS.

As Bank of America continues to lop off mortgage divisions, and lets its retail residential work force wither away there is renewed talk that it may finally throw Countrywide Funding Corp. -- the mortgage banker it bought three years ago -- into bankruptcy.

Bank of America continues to say that it's committed to retail mortgage lending, but the megabank suffered another blow recently with the departure of one of its top loan producers in the nation, Kevin Budde of Southern California.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D., Md., ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, and other members of Congress are set to meet with GSE regulator Ed DeMarco Thursday afternoon to discuss President Obama's yet-to-be released refinancing plan.

Yesterday we broke the news that Bank of America will exit six states in retail lending: Alabama, Alaska, Montana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. But wait a second, aren't some of these states among the best performing in terms of home prices?

Home prices in the U.S. decreased 0.4% in August on a sequential basis, the first monthly decline in four months, according to new figures released by CoreLogic.

Bank of America this week made the decision to exit retail lending in six low volume states including Alabama, Alaska, Montana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, National Mortgage News has learned.

So, is the mortgage industry really deconsolidating, something we've been writing about for the past nine months? Answer: it would appear that way.

Mortgage foreclosure vendor Lender Processing Services on Wednesday named Hugh R. Harris president and chief executive officer effective immediately.

Christmas has come a little early this year for warehouse lenders, thanks to Bank of America's planned exit from correspondent lending.

Southwest Bank, Fort Worth, Texas, is on the verge of making its first warehouse line of credit and is catering to a small but growing segment of the market that it calls "mini-correspondents."