Origination

Lawmakers from both political parties sharply criticized the banking regulators on Thursday for their risk-retention proposal, arguing it will lead to a credit crunch.

Guthy-Renker LLC, a marketing company known for its infomercials, will be entering the mortgage banking business through the acquisition of “a significant equity position” in Paramount Equity Mortgage, Roseville, Calif.

In the traditional brick-and-mortar mortgage universe, local mortgage originators trade leads with local real estate brokers all the time, without fear of getting trumped.

Essent Guaranty Inc., the nation’s newest private mortgage insurance company, has come out with a statement that it says protects mortgage lenders from having their claims “unfairly denied for immaterial misrepresentation, underwriting errors and missing documents.”

As REITs emerge as a key source of agency MBS demand and become the marginal buyers for mortgage-backeds, spreads are still range-bound even though there is the news that the Treasury is unwinding its MBS portfolio, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts in a report released Friday.

NASA Federal Credit Union, Upper Marlboro, Md., said it will begin offering 100% financing on mortgages in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, which is considered one of the better housing markets in the U.S.

Gramercy Capital Corp., New York, has received a second extension on the maturity date, this time for two weeks, from the lenders on $791 million in loans, in order to negotiate an orderly transition of the properties securing the loans to those lenders.

If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to be prohibited from purchasing mortgages tied to properties with private transfer fees, then the GSEs should create a database of these "hidden fees" fees to better protect lenders and consumers, according to the Consumer Mortgage Coalition.

CitiMortgage funded $14.1 billion of home mortgages in the first quarter, a 35% decline from 4Q, and further evidence that the nation's mega banks — as expected — are seeing a noticeable drop in new originations.

While flood map updates generally are largely improved and occurring in an accurate and relatively timely fashion, it appears the question of whether levees should be “decertified” has reached an impasse for the time being.