Origination

Single-family housing starts jumped almost 7% in November from the prior month to the highest level since April.

Bank of America Corp. has begun potential settlement discussions with large institutional investors who bought MBS that later underperformed, causing losses at these entities, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System this week suspended its mortgage program, citing rising delinquencies and declining usage by its target audience: state workers. The program's administrator is Citigroup.

The American Bankers Association and six other industry trade groups are urging a U.S. district court in Detroit to reject a recent Department of Labor interpretative ruling that certain loan officers are entitled to overtime pay.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Des Moines, Iowa, is closing its wholesale lending operations center in Concord, Calif., saying it can get better efficiencies of scale by shifting the work to another wholesale loan processing center located in Irvine, Calif.

A score of affordable federally-subsidized rental housing properties will be preserved and renovated under a partnership involving philanthropy, finance institutions and Uncle Sam. Together, the projects are home to more than 2,000 low-income residents.

Rising mortgage rates are starting to take their toll on new residential loan applications, according to figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The holidays are now just a short time away. Many will be traveling to be with family and friends. There are parties with your neighbors and co-workers. Then of course there are the business parties you get dragged to with your spouse and significant other.

The new HECM Saver program is designed for a different kind of borrower than the traditional Home Equity Conversion Mortgage product, declared an executive with one major reverse mortgage lender.Craig Corn, vice president of MetLife’s reverse mortgage division, said, “It was clear that there was a significant segment of the older American population that either dismissed the traditional HECM product outright because of its cost structure, or looked at it but considered than other financing alternatives,” such as home equity loans or lines of credit.

Mortgage positions were upset Tuesday as long-term rates acceleratedtheir climb in the wake of an agreement on an ambitious government stimulus plan -- a rate move that some said could have been worse if the Federal Reserve hadn't indicated it would continue its quantitative easing.