Origination

The Obama Administration expects to roll out a plan to lower barriers to refinancing in "the next couple of weeks," HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan told mortgage bankers at their annual convention in Chicago.

AppraiserLoft, the troubled AMC, has suspended all new business, and is preparing to shut down.

State regulators have issued guidelines to mortgage examiners on how to test state-licensed nonbanks for steering and other violations of the Federal Reserve's loan origination compensation rule.

Reverse Mortgage Solutions believes mortgage brokers may be the big winners from Bank of America and Wells Fargo exiting the reverse mortgage lending arena.

Housing is "extremely important to the President," a key White House advisor told the Mortgage Bankers Annual convention in Chicago.

While communication between loan buyers and sellers arguably has gotten better since the downturn, Titan Lenders Corp. executive vice president Ruth Lee Lee believes it still needs to improve.

Equifax is teaming up with Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. to offer insurance coverage for lenders that have been stung by loan repurchase requests where hidden debts were involved.

Royal Credit Union, Eau Claire, Wisc., has agreed to acquire 4,200 mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $600 million from a failed Minnesota bank called The RiverBank. No purchase price was disclosed.

In what is described as the first step in rebuilding the housing finance industry's tarnished image, the Mortgage Bankers Association has created a non-profit umbrella organization to support philanthropic ventures that help families and communities.

Hundreds of demonstrators picketed outside the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention in Chicago Monday afternoon and despite stepped up security, two made it into the convention's second general session, where they personally voiced their disapproval of lenders and how they are handling the mortgage crisis.