Slideshow The Top 10 Stories of 2011

After months of rumors, Bank of America made it official Wednesday morning, saying it would exit the correspondent mortgage space, where it ranks second nationwide.

The long rumored ‘mega’ layoff at Bank of America’s mortgage unit has begun.

For several months Fannie Mae has insisted that it's not in the servicing business, but a recent 10-Q filing by the government-owned GSE reveals that it agreed to buy $74 billion of MSRs from Bank of America in the third quarter. No purchase price was disclosed.

For a while it looked as though MetLife wanted to be a top player in mortgage banking. But not anymore. Late last week, the insurance conglomerate said it would explore a sale of MetLife Home Loans, Irving, Texas, stressing that it might only sell its “forward” business.

Despite falling house prices and rising claims, the Federal Housing Administration's mortgage insurance fund clung to a slim capital ratio of 0.24% on its book-of-business for the year ending Sept. 30, compared to 0.5% a year ago, according to independent actuarial reports released Tuesday morning.

It would seem that Federal Housing Finance Agency chief Edward DeMarco has given up hope that Congress will get around to permanently fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Some lenders are already chomping at the bit on 'HARP 2.0' and plan to hit the ground running to refinance Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac-backed mortgages when the application process commences on December 1.

A lot of mortgage applications went unfunded last year. A whole lot. In fact, a full $1 trillion in apps went unfunded for a variety of reasons. Compared to the $1.6 trillion that did get funded, that's a big turndown rate of 38%.

The founder and part owner of appraisal management vendor AppraiserLoft resigned as CEO this week, saying he wants to pursue new business ventures in mobile technology application development.

Bill Beckmann begins each week with a flight from his home in St. Louis to Washington, D.C. The weekly flights have become a routine of sorts since he took on a job that of late, has become among the most daunting among executive jobs in the mortgage industry, president and chief executive of Merscorp Inc.