Origination

Redwood Trust, the only firm to publicly issue jumbo MBS the past two years, earned just $1 million in the third quarter, but its acquisition of nonconforming product in the secondary market jumped by 166%.

Mortgage companies pared their payrolls by just 300 full-time employees in September, compared to 3,400 cuts the prior month, according to new government figures released Friday morning.

Ally Financial Corp. this week announced what it calls "modest" layoffs in its correspondent lending division, but declined to specify how many workers were cut.

European concerns' effect on the larger market drove the average weekly rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage down to 4%, a level Freddie Mac said is the second-lowest ever.

Efforts to reinstate the $729,750 maximum loan limit for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA loans has garnered the support of 137 House members, including 25 Republicans.

Commercial and multifamily mortgage originations in the third quarter were almost double what they were for the same period last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

CIT Group Inc., New York, is getting into the commercial real estate lending business, looking to originate and underwrite transactions in the Boston, New York and Washington markets.

CoreLogic posted a net loss of $107 million off revenue of $348 million, the result of substantial losses from the discontinued operations of five business units in the third quarter of 2011. The results compare to a net loss of $93 million off revenue of $330 million in 3Q10.

Loan origination system provider Ellie Mae reported net income of $1 million for the third quarter of 2011, down from a $1.7 million profit in 3Q10, but better than its losses of $40,000 in 2Q11 and $800,000 in 1Q11.

Bill Beckmann begins each week with a flight from his home in St. Louis to Washington. The weekly flights have become a routine of sorts since he took on a job that of late, has become the most daunting among executive jobs in the mortgage industry, president and chief executive of Merscorp Inc.