Originations

As Rep. Scott Garrett seeks to pass the first significant financial reform law since the Dodd-Frank Act, a lot of forces are aligned against him.

A proposal by the Obama administration to help more struggling borrowers refinance into cheaper loans is prompting questions: Could it prompt an increase in interest rates, after a long period of low rates? And is this a program that can relieve the housing crunch, or just another Band-Aid?

Commercial banks have experienced an increase in demand for commercial real estate loans since October, according to a Federal Reserve survey released Monday afternoon.

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.

Facebook is about to go public. Whoopee! Here's how an IPO works: all the private equity firms that have been funding a startup's operations get to cash out, recovering their seed money and then some. I'm not a Facebook user, but I get the model, though my doubts about the company stem from this basic belief: what's to prevent a bunch of low-cost competitors from offering the same service?

Have you ever had a situation where a friend, neighbor or family member got their mortgage from another lender? They like and respect you, but someone else asked for their business and got it. Sometimes we don't take the vital step of asking, simply because we can't think of an appropriate way to phrase the question.

When Bank of America and Wells Fargo exited the reverse lending space last year there were concerns that liquidity might dry up, but don't tell that to the sector's "survivors" who are now feasting on all the market share the two banking giants ceded.

The Treasury Department late Friday unveiled a new plan to expand the Home Affordable Modification Program by increasing the incentive fees it pays investors -- including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- for agreeing to reduce the principal amount of a mortgage.

I watched the State of the Union speech Tuesday and came away thinking no real "mortgage" surprises tonight except for two: Obama not using the word "mortgage broker" once, and the formation of the DOJ fraud task force on securitizing loans. But what about the "The State of the Mortgage Union"?

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Housing Administration is changing the way it monitors the loan performance of its largest lenders as part of a rule to clarify and codify its indemnification practices.

The serious delinquency rate on the Federal Housing Administration's $1 trillion single-family loan portfolio edged closer to 10% in December as the pace of originations slowed in the fourth quarter.

Raising guarantee fees on government-backed loans again would make a "bad situation worse," according to three industry groups that are lobbying elected officials to find new ways of funding a 10-month extension of the payroll tax holiday.

Dynex Capital Inc., a real estate investment trust that buys agency and non-agency, residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, has priced its 12.5 million share common stock offering at $9.12 per share, for gross proceeds of $114 million.

Companies have increasingly become reliant on bonuses to provide a portion of compensation to employees. Unfortunately, the use (or misuse) of a "bonus" often creates problems for employers.

Fannie Mae's latest housing forecast is in, and it predicts a stagnant mortgage market for the next two years, at about $1 trillion in originations for each of 2012 and 2013. Not what industry officials want to hear, especially after five rocky years starting in 2007.

Residential mortgages originated over the past two years are "among the best quality originations" on record, according to a new report from Lender Processing Services.

Data provider CoreLogic has released an enhanced version of its RiskModel, which is a commercial analytics application utilized by the major banks and regulators to project future RMBS prepayments, defaults, losses and cash flows.

RiskFinder Distress enables users to track and analyze key distress events throughout the life cycle of a loan. This computer product provides investors and lenders the information needed to evaluate risk, determine the impact of distress sales on loss severity estimates, drive loss mitigation strategies and identify markets that are starting to recover.

Kinecta Federal Credit Union, Manhattan Beach, Calif., posted a $30.6 million loss for 2011, citing problems with its mortgage business.

PHH Corp., which saw its CEO depart a few weeks ago, late Thursday named Charles Pizzi, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, to its board.