Finance

Impac Mortgage Holdings decided a year ago to emphasize its non-qualified mortgage lending operations and placed the company in position to succeed when the housing market returns to normal.

Home price gains continued during the fourth quarter and pushed the share of upside-down mortgages to the lowest level since the housing crisis, according to CoreLogic.

Not so long after Treasury bond yields experienced an unprecedented drop, the average 30-year mortgage rate rose, reflecting volatility related to the coronavirus as well as capacity issues on multiple levels.

Companies in the mortgage business were already focused on processing a lot of loans and generating efficiencies before the latest uptick in business hit.

With the return of volume and profitability to mortgage lending, it is no surprise that commercial banks are coming back to the market.

Terry Wakefield, a technology consultant who helped launch Fannie Mae's mortgage-backed securities business and form Prudential Home Mortgage, has died. He was 70.

Mortgage companies that borrow heavily to keep their operations running may face financial pressure from coronavirus-related market volatility as it affects the valuations of collateral securing their financing.

The $400 million Toorak Mortgage Trust 2020-1 is the largest securitization to date for Toorak, which provides short-term institutional capital for individual and corporate real estate developers.

Mortgage lenders could benefit from the surge in refinancing due to widening market spreads, and that could help offset damage to servicing rights portfolio valuations, according to Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

It's hard to overstate just how wild bond markets have gotten amid the coronavirus scare, forcing traders to rethink what's possible.