Origination

The residential mortgage division of Ally Financial earned $123 million in the fourth quarter, a slight decline from 3Q but a major improvement over the same period last year when it lost $3.3 billion.

The Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry is ready for federally insured banks, thrifts and credit unions to register their loan officers, according to federal and state regulators.

Impac Mortgage Holdings, a nonbank and former alt-A lender that survived the housing bust, has big plans for the future: not only does it plan to fund $1.2 billion in loans this year, it's anticipating that 80% of it will come from loan brokers.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded 759 speculative grade bonds in 405 nonconforming U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities transactions to “Dsf,” indicating they have taken principal writedowns.

December was the best month of 2010 for private mortgage insurance companies in terms of primary new insurance written, and the second worst of the year in terms of the cure/default ratio.

The 'Great Recession' and housing bubble have taken their toll on U.S. home owners. According to government figures released Monday morning, the nation's overall home ownership rate fell to 66.5% in the fourth quarter, the lowest reading since 1998.

The U.S. Attorney General is investigating alleged violations of regulations that protect active-duty military personnel from high mortgage interest rates and foreclosures.

The countdown clock on the Federal Reserve's rule to limit mortgage brokers' pay still has two months to go, but the shake-up is under way.

Technology vendor Mortech released a new version of its mortgage product and pricing engine that includes tools for automated underwriting.

Fannie Mae purchased $87.6 billion of mortgages from its seller/servicers in December, its best purchase month of the year and yet another sign that loan production remained strong in the fourth quarter.