Originations

The Federal Housing Finance Agency as early as Thursday could release its annual report on guarantee fees charged to mortgage bankers by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to industry officials.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins this week filed suit against MERSCORP, seeking a judicial determination of whether the industry's use of the Mortgage Electronic Registration System is legal in the Lone Star State.

More than a year after the Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to put the issue to rest, the question of whether "too big to fail" still exists is once again consuming the financial services industry.

Radian Group Inc., the nation's third largest mortgage insurer, said in a new regulatory filing Wednesday that it has fired its chief operating officer Robert Griffith and reduced its workforce by 7%.

Loan sale advisor DebtX is selling $160 million of performing and non-performing commercial real estate loans for German depository Deutsche Postbank.

The Federal Reserve Wednesday afternoon revealed that it will start purchasing agency MBS once again as a way to help support the mortgage market.

Mortgage bankers are once again enjoying the salad days: interest rates are the lowest they've been since the early 1950s, and their phones are ringing with frantic calls from consumers who want to refinance. The industry has seen this picture before: applications are flooding in at a pace not seen in several quarters, which means they need to staff up, but by how much?

FCI Lender Services, the nation's largest servicer of privately held mortgages, has received final servicing approval from the Federal Housing Administration.

Consumers are sharing more personal information online than ever — but they don't want to share it with their mortgage lenders and banks.

Demand for Federal Housing Administration single-family loans rose in August with lenders funding $17.4 billion of government-backed product, an 8% increase from the prior month.

Sales of existing single-family homes jumped 8.5% in August despite hurricane weather in the Northeast, igniting hopes that the long beleaguered housing market could be coming up for air.

Mortgage bankers originated $291 billion of residential loans in the second quarter — the industry's worst performance since the height of the housing crisis almost three years ago, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

Mortgage applications rose by just under 1% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending September 16 with refinancings gaining steam, according to new figures compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Home sales in California, the largest single-family market in U.S., are likely to rise 1% in 2012 after being essentially flat this year, according to a new forecast from the California Association of Realtors.

A top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee said Tuesday she is disappointed that the GOP has not been able to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since taking control of the House in January.

Berkadia Commercial Mortgage LLC, Horsham, Pa., has expanded its staff in the senior housing and healthcare lending business, in what it calls a renewed commitment to those markets.

Effective Jan. 1, California law provides that all insurers, brokers, agents, and others engaged in the transaction of insurance owe a prospective insured who is 65 years of age or older, a duty of honesty, good faith, and fair dealing.

Walker & Dunlop, LLC, Bethesda, Md., this week hired Rob Rotach as vice president and deputy chief underwriter for its Federal Housing Administration finance department.

The housing finance sector will have to wait until next year for the final rule on what constitutes a 'qualified residential mortgage,' the unofficial head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told a regulatory forum in Washington.

The chief author of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act took exception to what he called "the revolt against risk retention," saying requiring originators to hold 5% of the loan amount on their books is "one of the central things we did in the bill."