Originations

HomeSteps, the real estate sales unit of Freddie Mac, is now offering a special limited time offer of $1,500 to help condominium buyers pay for future associates dues.

Many people see their priorities shifting in life. They have a goal, work towards achieving it and then decide they would rather achieve success in a different way.

Many lenders are bent on expansion today even with a shrinking market, and there are a lot of reasons this makes sense even though it means that a certain degree of consolidation is inevitable as long as recovery remains elusive.

When an individual participates in a closing to buy, or sell a home or refinance their mortgage, the main reason that such a complex real estate transfer can be quickly accomplished is because an independent, third-party professional has already pulled together all of the documentation necessary to close the transaction.

Even though the management at Mount Laurel, N.J.-based PHH Corp. said its mortgage origination business lost market share during the second quarter, the analysts at FBR Capital Markets believe the company is becoming even more aggressive in bringing in new business as the larger servicers such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo are losing origination clients.

Thanks to crumbling mortgage rates loan applications are up by at least 30% at Skyline Financial, Agoura Hills, Calif., a nonbank lender headed by industry veteran Bill Dallas.

Deutsche Bank has been chosen to sell Aurora Loan Services, the Colorado-based mortgage banking division of Aurora Bank FSB, according to industry officials.

August is the time for the summer doldrums, when market activity slows, people take vacations and, in the mortgage business at least, gear up for a busy fall conference season.

Navy Federal Credit Union, Vienna, Va., is offering to pay up to $2,500 in closing costs for its mortgage borrowers; the offer covers both purchase and refinance transactions.

Interactive Mortgage Advisors, LLC has been hired to sell a full service mortgage banking firm – including production, servicing and insurance units – but is keeping the identity of the company a secret, at least for now.

Credit-default swaps on Bank of America, the nation's largest residential servicer, this week surged to the highest level since April 2009 before paring those gains.

Home Loan Servicing Solutions Ltd., a newly formed Cayman Island corporation controlled by Ocwen CEO Bill Erby, plans to sell 18.3 million shares in its initial public offering, raising $316.3 million from investors.

I was recently working with one of my San Francisco Bay Area executive coaching clients, the president of a mid-sized company. We discussed how to keep customers for life.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is developing a set ofpolicy changes that would require reverse mortgage lenders to better underwrite Home Equity Conversion Mortgages. But lenders may beat HUD to the punch.

NovaStar Financial Inc., a former high flyer in the subprime mortgage originations business now pursuing the appraisal niche and others, reported net earnings of $457,000 for the second quarter, up from $256,000 one year prior.

Prices of single-family homes fell almost 3% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year with distressed transactions accounting for 33% of existing home sales, according to new figures compiled by the National Association of Realtors.

Reverse Mortgage Solutions, a Houston-based originator and servicer of FHA Home Equity Conversion Mortgages, is starting a wholesale production channel for these loans.

Relatively favorable jobless claims and a rally in the stock market Thursday reversed the course of mortgage rates, causing them to bounce back from what Freddie Mac's latest weekly survey confirmed have been a record lows.

Most lenders and servicers likely may pay no mind to the work of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization's contingent of dedicated volunteers. They don't care how the technology works; they just want it to work.

Mortgage technology and fulfillment outsourcing vendor ISGN raised $30 million in fresh capital from its existing group of investors.