Origination

There may be a simple reason why Wells won’t buy mortgages from a certain lender.

The lending industry would face “disparate-impact” liability for Fair Housing Act violations under a rule recently proposed by HUD.

Residential originations may have fallen by more than 10% last year, but don’t tell that to community banks that rely on Mortgage Solutions, a subsidiary of the American Bankers Association.

Ginnie Mae wants to provide more loan-level data to its MBS investors so they can determine if the underlying mortgages were originated through a mortgage broker or some other third-party channel.

United Guaranty Corp., the mortgage insurance subsidiary of American International Group, had operating income of $8 million in the first quarter, down from $14 million for the same period in 2011.

Redwood Trust Inc., the nation’s only active securitizer of jumbo residential loans, posted stellar earnings of $30 million in the first quarter, a 66% jump from the same period a year ago.

Nonbank trade groups are calling on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to narrow the definitions it will use to determine which nonbanks will be subject to federal supervision.

In February and January of this year mortgage firms hired 5,500 workers. That’s good news for the industry and shows that residential finance is on the rise again after several rough years of dealing with record delinquencies, sagging home values, tougher regulations, and the general perception that “renting is good.”

Mortgage companies added 2,800 full-time employees to their payrolls in March after hiring 2,700 in February, according to government figures released Friday morning.

When MetLife Bank NA jettisoned its mortgage subsidiary back in January most of the firm’s loan officers moved to Wells Fargo and other banks. For the LOs affected, moving to a nonbank lender wasn’t a practical option.