Origination

A pair of mortgage companies owned by affiliates of Lone Star Funds, originator Caliber Funding and servicer Vericrest Financial, have agreed to combine operations to create a full-service mortgage banker.

Wells Fargo is expanding its commercial real estate operations in the United Kingdom.

A post on the Mortgage Grapevine is seeking funding for construction in New Jersey.

Republic Bancorp said that in 19 months of operations, its warehouse lending business has lines of credit outstanding of $217 million from total credit commitments of $331 million.

Citigroup sold $600 million in nonperforming mortgages in the fourth quarter.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slid two basis points to 3.38% in Freddie Mac’s latest weekly survey.

Noninterest income in the fourth quarter at PNC Financial Services Group was impacted by the previously announced $254 million provision related to mortgage loan repurchase requests.

CoreLogic reports an additional 100,000 borrowers moved from negative to positive equity status during the third quarter of 2012.

Bank of America saw its profits fall in the fourth quarter after several mortgage-related problems were settled as a result of the financial crisis.

National Mortgage Insurance Corp. has cleared two of the biggest hurdles it faced before being able to start writing private mortgage insurance policies.