Origination

Mortgage bankers soon will able to originate Federal Housing Administration loans of up to $729,750 in high cost areas thanks to Congress, which passed a "minibus" appropriations bill Thursday night.

CWCapital LLC, Boston, on Thursday revealed that it has bought $2.6 billion of Fannie Mae multifamily servicing rights from Citigroup. No price was disclosed.

Mortgage interest rates were essentially flat between this week and last, as good economic news kept the markets calm, according to the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

Officials from the government-sponsored enterprises continue to encourage lenders to be proactive with their appraisal and origination technology vendors in preparation for the new requirements in the Uniform Mortgage Data Program.

I was recently working with one of my San Francisco Bay Area executive coaching clients, the CEO of a boutique hotel and restaurant company. We had an enlightening coaching conversation about how he has handled failure and learned from his mistakes. We talked about how he was able to bounce back from failure by viewing business as a learning laboratory.

Single-family housing starts rose 4% in October from the previous month, but multifamily activity fell 13%, according to new government figures released Thursday morning.

Quicken Loans received the highest customer satisfaction score in this year's J.D. Power and Associates 2011 Primary Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study, while Bank of America -- the poster child for consumer missteps -- received the lowest.

Effective technology strategies will help define the “winners and losers” in the new era of mortgage banking, the CEO of loan origination system provider Ellie Mae said during this week's Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami.

Many of the mortgage industry’s leading professionals were on hand for the return of Mortgage Technology’s annual conference this week, and the beautiful Miami weather wasn’t the only thing that had attendees excited.

The willingness and ease of adopting new technology is tied to how that experience reduces or increases stress to the end user. When technology vendors and lender executives understand that dynamic, new mortgage technology can be implemented more effectively and with less resistance from employees, said Rene Rodriguez during a presentation at this week’s Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami.