Originations

Existing home sales increased 4.0% in November to a seasonally adjusted 4.42 million-unit rate, after a downwardly revised 4.25 million unit rate in October, the National Association of Realtors announced Wednesday. NAR announced its benchmark revisions.

Residential loan applications fell by almost 3% for the week ending December 16, despite continued historically low rates, according to new figures compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

After reading bits and pieces of the Securities and Exchange Commission's complaint against the former heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac one thought comes to mind: what exactly is a subprime loan again?

Awareness to the negative equity problem faced by millions of borrowers and their lenders continues to concern market insiders as they strive to come up with solutions that can help ease the setback. It is the goal of the new Home Affordable Refinance Program and some insurers whose products offer some degree of protection as an added incentive to homeowners interested in refinancing or taking on a new mortgage.

As part of its growth plans, Greenlight Financial Services, Irvine, Calif., has added a reverse mortgage division. The 10-year old company is hiring 400 people across the board to fill its needs as a result of the expansion.

Loan origination system provider Ellie Mae is changing its strategy for integrating its technology and customer base with that of recently acquired LOS vendor Del Mar DataTrac, by offering the DMD's point of sale application to users of the DataTrac LOS.

Mortgage stocks on Tuesday posted gains as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose almost 300 points, and the yield on the rate-indicative 10-year Treasury rebounded.

It's that time of the year again: one in which financial services columnists wax poetic and ponder the Bailey Building and Loan and how if it existed today (it doesn't really) regulators would sue George Bailey (and Uncle Billy and 'Old Man' Potter since he sat on the board) for fraud to go after the D&O insurance.

Home Savings of America in Little Falls, Minn., has scuttled - for now - its merger with Cornerstone Mortgage after one of the bank's private equity investors backed out of the deal, according to a memo provided to National Mortgage News.

Single-family housing starts rose 2.4% in November on a sequential basis while multifamily starts jumped 32%, according to a new government report.

Fitch Ratings has upgraded its outlook for the title industry to stable from negative, but that is because the weak market conditions expected to affect industry profitability in 2012 are largely reflected in the current ratings.

We've all heard the cliché quote about death and taxes. But for the small business owner (which defines many mortgage company owners), getting ready to do their taxes (and we can skip the cliché about render unto Caesar as well) is something that falls to the bottom of the list as the year ends.

Home sales fell 5.7% in November but prices were up month over month, according to new figures released by RE/MAX.

Fannie Mae's chief economist is warning that the United States has a 40% chance of slipping into a double-dip recession in 2012.

The Senate over the weekend added an increase in FHA premiums to the payroll tax bill, passing the measure by an overwhelming margin of 89-10.

Commercial REIT Vornado Realty Trust has acquired a 49.5% stake in 666 Fifth Ave., a 39-story office building in Manhattan, from the Kushner Cos.

Redwood Trust said it is currently seeing a very robust pipeline of potential CMBS transactions.

Just imagine what a 10 basis point guarantee fee hike would do to the market for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans. Well, apparently, the mortgage insurance industry has done quite a bit of imagining and has managed to get language added to the payroll tax bill that seeks parity between g-fee hikes for Fannie/Freddie, and GNMA.

CHICAGO - Good training comes from having good recruiting practices, declared one panelist at the "Best Practices in Sales Training" session at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention here.

There are a few maxims we have all heard over the years regarding customer retention, including that it is cheaper to keep a current client than it is to have to find a new one.