Data and information management

Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock Financial, is nobody's fool - not by a long shot. He cut his teeth at First Boston many moons ago, helped shape the MBS market, and then went on to create a financial services powerhouse: BlackRock

Mortgage lenders issued $30 billion of Ginnie Mae MBS in January, up 9% from the previous month, according to new figures released Thursday morning.

Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries confirmed that home prices have not hit bottom yet as values declined 1.1% in the fourth quarter last year, but there are good signs ahead for the market.

commercial real estate exposure was the main reason why bank loans failed in January. Nonperforming loans for commercial real estate comprised $363.5 million of the total $487.7 million for the failed banks.

Loan originations on income producing properties will rise 17% this year to nearly $230 billion, the Mortgage Bankers Association is projecting in its first-ever non-residential lending forecast.

Driven by large increases in multifamily and industrial production, commercial loan originations rose 13% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

After three months of home price stability, Clear Capital revealed dim news for the housing industry through the end of January. Home prices on a year-over-year basis decreased by 2.6% through January, slightly worse than the 2.1% value drop experienced in December.

Wells Fargo is not only the country's largest originator of home loans. It's also the largest servicer of commercial and multi-family mortgages.

Wholesale lending is back! OK, not exactly. Citigroup announced its exit from the channel this past week and some trade journals - not knowing their stuff - seemed to think it was the biggest story since the Hindenburg disaster. Wholesale only accounted for 9% of Citi's production.

Genworth Financial posted earnings of $107 million in the fourth quarter - compared to a $161 million loss a year ago - but its mortgage insurance division continued to struggle.

Mortgage companies have added at least 3,000 full-time employees to their payrolls since September -- to keep up with refinancings -- but held off on hiring in December, according to new government figures released Friday morning.

National home prices fell for the fifth consecutive year as they were down 4.7% at the end of 2011 compared to December 2010, according to a CoreLogic report.

The national vacancy rate for single-family homes fell in 2011 as foreclosures slowed and sales of empty units increased by 14% over the past four quarters, according to new government figures released Tuesday morning.

Economists at Fiserv expect rising home sales will lead to higher values in half of all U.S. metropolitan areas over the 12-month period ending September 30.

Positive housing data from the end of 2011 nudged the average weekly rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage back upward by 10 basis points to 3.98% in Freddie Mac's primary market survey, reversing a three-week trend of record-setting lows.

Despite lingering challenges real estate agents and lenders currently face when selling foreclosed and bank owned properties, these homes continue to make up a high percentage of all sales nationwide through the third quarter of 2011 even though it's lower than the previous quarter.

California's home builders suffered through their third lowest year on record in 2011. The only thing that kept the year from being worse was the apartment sector, which rose sharply.

GNMA chief Ted Tozer has been trying in vain to get more mortgage firms to issue MBS, but Wells Fargo & Co. continues to increase its grip on the government market.

Fannie Mae's final multifamily issuance numbers for 2011 are in and they reflect a 50% increase from the previous year, according to an executive at the government-sponsored enterprise.

With record low mortgage rates, decreasing home prices and relatively mild weather throughout the country, many states are experiencing home sale increases this winter compared to previous years.