Origination

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is determined to continue its mission of shrinking the balance sheets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and plans only to add product when the two need to buy delinquent mortgages out of delinquent MBS pools.

A majority of Supreme Court justices seem convinced that RESPA is simply an anti-kickback statute -- but may rule that the 1974 law has a broader reach if they defer to HUD's interpretation concerning unearned loan fees.

Navy Federal Credit Union, Merrifield, Va., the largest CU player in mortgages, plans to hire as many as 600 employees at its Pensacola, Fla., call center campus to accommodate growth.

A bullish thesis on construction activity has taken hold among investors who have bid up the shares of major home builders by as much as 80% in the last six months.

Certain appraisal management companies acting as a middleman between an originator and appraiser are not registering with the states, raising concerns about lost tax revenue, according to the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals.

Given the ugly employment picture in the U.S., now isn't exactly the best time for a company to be crowing about how cheap its labor costs are thanks to overseas outsourcing. But don't tell that to Ocwen Financial, soon to become the nation's largest specialty servicer.

The last round of good faith estimate reform from 2010 is still causing some consternation two years later, and the industry is heading toward another round.

All of the major mortgage industry economists are predicting that 2012 will see a decline in originations from 2011. Yet, instead of retrenching, several organizations are predicting increased volume and acting upon that by expanding their retail branch networks.

According to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke in a speech at the National Association of Home Builders International Builders Show in Orlando, "The state of the housing sector has been a key impediment to a faster recovery."

Over the last 20 years you have all heard me speak of this agency. All federal financial institutions have to file Suspicious Activity Reports with it. The filer may not reveal to anyone this has been done under criminal penalty. The filer does it in good faith and does not even have to be right. It reaches the desks of the FBI, Secret Service and local prosecutors.