Origination

Mortgage companies have added at least 3,000 full-time employees to their payrolls since September -- to keep up with refinancings -- but held off on hiring in December, according to new government figures released Friday morning.

Provident Financial Holdings Inc., Riverside, Calif., has hired 40 people from MetLife Home Loans to run three new retail mortgage loan production offices in Northern California.

Employment concerns, tight underwriting and the over-supply of homes on the market are still outweighing what have been great gains in affordability, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday.

Taking a trip? Most prudent travelers create some sort of plan before venturing on any type of journey. Where to begin the trip, what items to pack and what markers you'll encounter to aid in getting to your destination are just a few of the details to be addressed.

The Obama administration is working toward producing a plan to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner.

Cash-out refinancings hit a 26-year low in the fourth quarter as 85% of borrowers maintained the same loan amount or reduced their principal balance after refinancing, according to a new report by Freddie Mac.

Freddie Mac saw its 2011 multi-family volume increase by 32% over 2010 to more than $20 billion. Of that total, $16.5 billion, or 81%, of new purchase volume was through the Capital Markets Execution program – the largest annual volume amount to date.

Most mortgage rates returned to record low levels during the week ending Feb. 2, according to Freddie Mac's weekly rate report.

Fannie Mae did $24 billion of multi-family mortgages last year, of which 98% were put into mortgage-backed securities. The leading Delegated Underwriting and Servicing program originator was Wells Fargo Bank NA.

The Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention was set for Orlando in 2005. So far, so good. I'd been to a million meetings in Orlando, and here was one more. The trouble was, Florida was also set for a visit at the same time by a monster hurricane named Wilma.