Loan Think

By now, most of know that the second quarter was not pretty when it came to residential origination volumes. On Monday National Mortgage News will publish its final 2Q rankings.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is dominated by mortgage/banking hating socialists hell bent on destroying the U.S. economy. At least that's the perception you get from talking to some rabid industry executives who were hoping to kill the agency before it ever got off the ground.

Social media use remains a polarizing issue among mortgage origination companies—they either embrace it or shun it totally. The latter is in part because of the fear, not entirely unfounded, that their regulators who don't have a policy in this area could come down hard on any missteps.

In general, mortgage booms are born in recessions (though not always.) When the economy struggles (like it has since 2008) the Federal Reserve keeps rates low, and those low rates spark a boom in housing and mortgage lending. Of course, this time around everything is different.

On Aug. 29, two men suspected of scamming homeowners struggling to avoid foreclosure will be arraigned in San Bernardino Superior Court on a 45-count criminal complaint.

THIS JUST IN: Bank of America is contemplating ending its warehouse unit's "early purchase program" by yearend, according to one source familiar with the matter. If so, that means nonbanks that originate mortgages in the primary market with B of A warehouse money and then sell that production to its correspondent group (through a captive arrangement) could be out of luck.

It's bit too early to declare one topic the "biggest mortgage story of the year" but the front runner is Bank of America's downsizing in residential finance. I don't mean to pick on the bank, but never before in the history of the business has a number one ranked company in both production and servicing fallen so hard, so fast.

First the good news: the White House later this month will release its plan to refinance billions of dollars of outstanding mortgages. (We might get a taste tonight when the president makes his speech.) Now the bad news: no one is certain exactly what it will look like and who will be eligible.

The new MBA application survey is out and the news is a bit perplexing: despite the lowest rates in 50 years application volume fell by 5% for the week ending Sept. 2. What's going on here?

When it comes to mortgage banking, Bank of America is heading for the turnstiles. Over the past 12 months it has exited wholesale and reverse lending, announced plans to downsize its servicing portfolio in a major way, and put its correspondent division on the auction block.