Origination

PHH Corp., which saw its CEO depart a few weeks ago, late Thursday named Charles Pizzi, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, to its board.

A new national refinancing program unveiled by President Obama earlier in the week will rely on the Federal Housing Administration to refinance private and GSE mortgages, according to a report from Federal Financial Analytics in Washington.

Citigroup Inc. will no longer purchase "medium or high-risk" loans that could result in buyback requests from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, in the bank's latest effort to improve the quality of mortgages it buys from correspondent lenders, according to an internal memo obtained by American Banker.

The value at risk metric employed by every major banking institution offered the appearance of safety until taxpayer bailouts were the only option to save the financial system. Today, regulators are examining historical factors to determine what defines a "safe" mortgage in order to calculate capital adequacy and risk retention requirements.

New York Community Bancorp Inc., Westbury, N.Y. said its fourth quarter profits of $118 million were in part fueled by $25 million in income from mortgage banking, driven by refinancing activity during the period. For the full year, NYCB's net income was $496 million, up from 2010's $560,000.

New home sales fell 6.5% in 2011, but many economists are forecasting that home buying will rise this year.

Old Republic International Corp.'s mortgage guaranty business lost $163 million for the fourth quarter and $678 million for the year, 48% worse and 160% worse than the same periods one year ago, as claims costs intensified throughout the year.

Positive housing data from the end of 2011 nudged the average weekly rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage back upward by 10 basis points to 3.98% in Freddie Mac's primary market survey, reversing a three-week trend of record-setting lows.

If there is one thing that has been lacking over the years for many mortgage originators, it is customer loyalty. And it is a two-way street—both sides have tended to treat the transaction as a one-off deal.

President Obama Tuesday night made a few specific references to the mortgage industry in his State of the Union speech, but never did he once use the phrase "loan broker" or try to paint these third-part salesmen as the evildoers of the housing crisis (as he has in the past.)