Origination

Mortgage buyers are finding new reasons to make the originators buy back home loans, ensuring that repurchases will remain a burden for lenders for the next few years.

ORLANDO, FL-Sooner or later, mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration may once again become the loans of last resort for borrowers who can't qualify for conventional financing. But for now, they are king.

That's the word from Jacksonville mortgage broker Patrice Yamato, who led an entry-level course on FHA loans at the Florida Association of Mortgage Professional's annual convention here earlier this month.

Indeed, FHA loans are "just about the only low downpayment product in town," said Yamato, who was FAMP's president in 2006.

Capital Communications Federal Credit Union, Albany, N.Y. has acquired two mortgage service companies based in the state's capital.

Single-family housing starts leveled off in June, dropping by 0.7%, following a 10% decline in May after the expiration of the federal homebuyer tax credit.

After three years of staggering losses from the housing crisis, MGIC Investment Corp., Milwaukee, defied analysts' expectations and posted a $26.4 million profit for the second quarter.

Innkeepers USA Trust, a real estate investment trust based in Palm Beach, Fla., today filed a pre-arranged plan of reorganization under chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code after reaching agreements with certain creditors.

CapLease Inc., New York, has entered into an amendment to its secured revolving credit agreement with Wells Fargo Bank NA.

Toronto-based Avison Young is expanding its U.S. presence through the acquisition of Hodges Management and Leasing Company of Atlanta.

Things will bottom out in the California office and industrial real estate markets later this year or early next year, but a panel of developers believes there is a "distant glow of light at the end of the tunnel," according to the latest Allen Matkins/UCLA Anderson Forecast Commercial Real Estate Survey and Index Research Project.

Loan officers, loan data and underwriting are all going to continue to face mounting scrutiny from investors and regulators as the market strives to reach a point where investors become comfortable enough with private-label risk to rebuild that market again, a move that could pave the way for reform of the government-sponsored enterprises.