Secondary

CitiMortgage is throwing its wholesale division overboard – again. Readers of the National Mortgage News website (and weekly) might recall that two years ago Citi scaled back its broker channel significantly only to re-grow it a bit. But at last check, wholesale production accounted for just 10% of its overall production and some brokers I talked to are not sorry to see them go.

The analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods predict investors would be willing to take on more interest rate risk in light of the Federal Reserve Board's intention to keep rates low through 2014 and that should keep their interest in mortgage real estate investment trusts growing.

One of the takeaways from the entire mortgage meltdown and the current brouhaha over Freddie Mac's obscure hedging techniques is this: If you can't explain something, you shouldn't be doing it.

CitiMortgage, the nation's sixth largest residential wholesaler, Wednesday afternoon informed its loan brokers that it will cease table funding loans next week as it prepares to exit the channel.

Military generals are cautioned to avoid fighting the last war; time and opponents have a way of producing new ways to contest a battlefield, catching unwary leaders off guard. When it comes to housing policy and political power, are Washington observers missing the next conflict?

There has been a relative increase in builder debt issuance this week and more may be on the way.

December was the best month of 2011 in terms of primary new mortgage insurance written by the current membership of the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America.

Fannie Mae's issuance of mortgage-backed securities jumped 20% in December after a similar increase in November, according to new figures released by the mortgage giant.

NCUA said Tuesday it disagrees with a tentative ruling by a federal judge that would dismiss its suit against RBS Securities in the failure of WesCorp FCU, a ruling that could jeopardize similar suits against JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo for the sale of risky mortgage backed securities to five failed corporate credit unions.

Mortgage application volume fell by 2.9% for the week ended Jan. 27 from the previous week, even though mortgage interest rates declined for fixed-rate mortgages, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.