Origination

Mortgage Technology magazine, an Origination News affiliate, presented its 12th annual awards last month.

Wells Fargo & Co. this week launched a new unit to provide financial services to publicly traded real estate investment trusts involved in commercial properties.

Home prices, which have fallen nearly 6% over the past four quarters (ending June 30), could fall another 3.6% by the second quarter of next year, according to analysts at Fiserv, which owns and generates the Case/Shiller house price indexes.

The Federal Housing Administration and Internal Revenue Service will begin allowing electronic signatures on FHA loan documents and the 4506-T form in 2012, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

MarketAxess, a U.S. and European fixed-income electronic trading platform, has made an initial foray into U.S. nonagency residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities markets that appears to be drawing some interest.

Ginnie Mae reported a $1.2 billion profit from its secondary market operations in fiscal year 2011 — up 84% from FY 2010 — due to lower loss provisioning.

MetLife has originated over $1.6 billion in agricultural mortgages in the first nine months of 2011. It provides mortgage loans on farms, ranches, timberland and agribusiness facilities throughout North America.

Presidential Realty Corp., a real estate investment trust based in White Plains, N.Y., has terminated its plan of liquidation and instead entered into a strategic transaction where affiliates of Signature Community Investment Group LLC acquired a significant interest in the company.

Ally Financial Inc. is actively considering putting its ailing Residential Capital Corp. mortgage lending unit into bankruptcy, according to a report from Dow Jones.

The Federal Housing Administration confirmed that it has hired a new multifamily director and a new chief risk officer.