Originations

President Obama on Tuesday officially appointed Carol Galante to serve as the new acting commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, overseeing the agency's single family and multifamily programs.

Republican leaders on the House Financial Services Committee are coming under strong criticism for taking a piecemeal approach to winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while ignoring several comprehensive GSE reform bills that address the future of the housing finance system.

Fidelity National Financial, Jacksonville, Fla., has agreed to pay the Department of Housing and Urban Development $4.5 million to settle allegations of the anti-kickback provision of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

Continued volatility is leading to investor fatigue regarding the three monoline mortgage insurance companies and those investors are starting to believe that unless better progress is made towards profitability, further capital raises could be needed, a preview of second quarter earnings from the analysts at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods declared

MISMO volunteers soon will begin creating a standard electronic document for the HUD-1 mortgage disclosure form based on the group’s new Version 3.1 Reference Model.

Commercial mortgage data provider Trepp acquired REITCafe, which hosts a website, e-newsletter and social media targeted to the real estate investment trust industry.

Todd Chamberlain, a 25-year veteran of the mortgage industry and the head of residential lending at Regions Financial left the company last week to take a job with a competitor, industry officials told National Mortgage News.

Although the U.S. government may soon default on its debt obligations, home buyers in the Capital area are stepping up to the plate to buy homes.

Since I have been rather quick to jump on the mistakes of the sales people I encounter, I figure I need to confess to my own recent foible as a customer.

The long-term rate-indicative 10-year Treasury yield dropped steeply Monday morning, moving well below 3%.

Appraisal management software provider Global DMS integrated its Global Kinex platform to the Uniform Collateral Data Portal, the technology recently launched to deliver appraisals to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fifth Third Mortgage Co., Cincinnati, has come out with a new incentive program for homebuyers that offers them the opportunity of getting a reduced rate on their purchase money mortgage.

Fort Worth City Credit Union has only one branch, which poses an efficiency and energy problem with loan document execution: the credit union has to either build new branches or require customers to drive long distances to sign paper documents in person.

The board set up to finance and operate a new state teaching hospital in New Orleans has withdrawn its request for federal enhancement of revenue bonds needed to build the $1.2 billion University Medical Center.

Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. and affiliated funds of Perella Weinberg Partners’ asset based value strategy have formed a joint venture to originate commercial mortgages for future securitization, the companies said Friday.

Global real estate funds management firm Agincourt Capital plans to launch this Thursday what it said is the first-ever offshore renminbi secured convertible bond fund for Australian residential and commercial real estate, and it is also in the process of structuring an RMB bond fund that will invest in certain New York City properties.

Vacancies at shopping centers rose for the first time in a year in the second quarter as retail properties lagged the U.S. office and apartment rebound, according to a new report from Reis Inc.

The mortgage originations business has seen a number of different business models, including traditional storefronts and online call centers as well as all sorts of iterations of net branches and cooperatives. Now, one originator believes the industry is ripe for a franchise model, similar to what is seen with real estate brokers and even McDonald’s.

For Mike Meena, hard work built up over a lot of years in the business was the driving factor behind his 2010 production numbers. That hard work turned into referrals from business partners and past clients. Underlying that is a culture of service.

Even as overall wholesale volumes continue to decline some players continue to grow their stakes in the space like Texas-based Caliber Funding and 360 Mortgage Group, which may represent two different ends of the range of approaches to lending in this third-party origination space.