Paul Muolo

It used to be that trade groups were the "optimistic" ones, always putting a nice spin on the numbers. (Remember NAR economist David Lereah?) But the Mortgage Bankers Association has seen the future of the business and the next two years are looking a bit dicey. In a new forecast MBA projects $966 billion in total industry production this year and $976 billion next year.

Over the past three years the sale of bulk servicing rights has been anemic, that is, unless Uncle Sam (namely the FDIC) has been the one doing the selling.

Ken Lewis, the former Bank of America chief whose brilliant idea it was to buy Countrywide Financial Corp. is set for life. He's out of the banking industry (thanks to the Countrywide deal) but he has plenty of money to secure a comfortable retirement. But then there's his legacy to consider.

Texas Congressman Randy Neugebauer believes that most loan modifications are a waste of time and should be halted now. How does the conservative congressman from Texas feel about private sector mods?

THIS JUST IN: April 1 is getting closer and mortgage brokers – and their trade reps -- are getting desperate, urging the Federal Reserve Board to delay the effective date of its LO compensation rule. The common compliant of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers and Mortgage Bankers Association is this: the Fed needs to provide written guidance on key implementation issues

Has the market for nonperforming loans peaked? Not really, but the complaints continue to roll in that the big banks are hoarding their NPLs (thanks to accounting changes made last year that make such a move beneficial) and when they do, in fact, offer their crap it's at unrealistic prices.

When it comes to the future of mortgage securitizations, it's safe to say the entire business is up for grabs, but nowhere is that more apparent than in the market for issuing bonds backed by "nonqualified" residential loans.

Former Texas Congressman Dick Armey has come up with a whole list of ways to balance the federal budget, including eliminating a few cabinet agencies, chief among them the Department of Housing and Urban Development. (His suggestions were published this week in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal.)

The megabanks have spoken! Both Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase this week declared that big ticket loan repurchase demands from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other secondary market investors may soon be a thing of the past. (See our reports on the NMN website.)

There are two schools of thought on how rising mortgage rates will affect the application market. One camp suggests it will kill all mortgage deals, including both purchase and refinancings, while another maintains a spike in rates is forcing some home buyers to get off the fence and buy a home now before rates rise even more.

CMG Mortgage Services is becoming one of an increasingly rare breed: a nonbank lender with strong growth and a franchise model that relies on both retail lending and loan brokers.

THIS JUST IN: First off, what we've been hearing regarding a change to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and GNMA servicing fees is all preliminary. But rest assured, government proposals (if you can call them that) soon will be revealed. And which agency might do the revealing? Well, that's a different matter.

Although some mortgage lenders — such as GMAC and Flagstar — are still actively recruiting new loan officers, we're beginning to hear rumblings that certain top ranked lenders are carefully taking a head count, and plan to make job cuts during the next few weeks unless new applications begin to pickup steam.

It’s been said of the housing crisis that the faster banks and the GSEs unload their REO properties the quicker markets will recover with prices rising once again.

It has been a few days since Massachusetts' highest court repudiated two foreclosures in the state, sending servicers (and financial journalists) into a frenzy trying to figure out what it all means. According to one press report the ruling "could scuttle other foreclosure cases statewide and may portend similar blows to the industry elsewhere."

THIS JUST IN: Are employees of the U.S. Treasury moonlighting as loan officers to make extra cash? We can't say for sure, but we know of at least one Treasury official that's preparing to take his state test. And no, it's not Tim Geithner…

I'm beginning to hear more complaints about bank lenders getting sloppy with their 'Good Faith Estimate' disclosures. One LO who works the Connecticut market told me that she's running into more and more customers who aren't being served a GFE until three to four weeks after application.

CMG Mortgage Services is becoming one of an increasing rare breed: a nonbank lender with strong growth and a franchise model that relies on both retail lending and loan brokers

By now you've heard about the recent fish kills in the Chesapeake Bay, birds dying in Arkansas and Kentucky, and crab corpses washing up on beaches in England. These random events are fanning the flames of religious fanatics who think the 'Big Guy' (and I don't mean Clarence Clemons) is on the way very soon (and it's not even 2012.) Of course, if the world will end soon the obvious thought for consumers is this: why keep paying the mortgage?

First, let's state the obvious: few inside the private sector really know what's going to be in the White House's master plan to revamp Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which is really a plan to reshape all of housing finance in America because let's face it: Fannie and Freddie buy/guarantee 70% of every home mortgage in America.