Originations

Fannie Mae reported a $6.5 billion loss for the first quarter, after posting an operating profit of $73 million in the prior period.

NexBank, Dallas, is starting a correspondent lending program aimed at community banks and mortgage brokers. The company already has a wholesale channel (started in 2008) and last year entered the warehouse lending business.

Improved liquidity in the warehouse lending market is leading to price competition and reductions in credit standards, according to panelists speaking at an industry conference in New York this week.

The return to operating profitability at Radian Group should be in 2012 but for rival PMI, it should take longer to return to profitability because it continues to operate with a thinner capital cushion than its competitors, separate reports from FBR Capital Markets analyst Steve Stelmach declare.

CoreLogic, Santa Ana, Calif., reported net income of $23 million for the first quarter, which included a $25 million pretax gain on the sale of DealerTrack Holdings common stock and a $14 million increase to its tax provision related to a deferred-tax asset reduction because of the Dorado acquisition.

The big question on everyone’s mind at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Secondary Market Conference in New York was, when will we see a thriving nonconforming secondary again?

When long-term interest rates ticked up late last year, it was widely believed that mortgage revenues would modestly decline in the first quarter. Revenues did fall, but the drop-off was more extreme than most community banks expected.

United Guaranty Corp., the mortgage insurance subsidiary of American International Group, had operating income of $13 million for the first quarter, down from operating income of $73 million for the same period last year.

Strategy always gains from specificity. It's even more important to be specific when planning and conducting the implementation of the strategy. A key role of the strategic leader is to move from general assertions to specific expressions of intent and then on to the actual plan of implementation.

Credit Suisse this week hired Roger Lehman as managing director and head of its commercial mortgage-backed securities department, responsible for research and analysis. His appointment is effective August 1.

The mortgage industry continued to shed jobs in March, the third straight month in which full-time employment in the sector took a dive, according to government figures released Friday morning.

Senate Republicans declared war on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Thursday afternoon when they vowed to block the nomination of any permanent director unless Congress agrees to sweeping changes to the agency's structure.

The biggest obstacle to confirming a director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may not be Republicans or banking industry opposition but rather a ticking clock.

Commercial and multifamily mortgage originations jumped 89% higher during the first quarter on a year-to-year basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association quarterly survey.

The PMI Group Inc., Walnut Creek, Calif., lost $127 million in the first quarter 2011, as its U.S. mortgage insurance business had a net loss of $137 million for the period due to continued high losses and loss adjustment expenses and lower premiums earned.

Despite what CEO S.A. Ibrahim described as the stagnant housing market affecting his company's mortgage insurance business, Radian Group Inc. reported a first quarter net profit of $103 million. This profit was driven by $319 million of fair market gains on derivatives.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage during the week ending May 5 matched its low for the year in Freddie Mac’s closely watched survey as the 15-year rate dropped to a new low for 2011.

One origination technology provider thinks the many different components of compliance need to be managed from a single system, not only because of compliance risk alone, but also because of buyback or pushback risk.

Space Coast Credit Union, which filed suit last week against Barclays Capital over CDOs the investment bank sold to Eastern Financial Florida CU, is expected to file similar suits over the next few weeks against other Wall Street firms in the 2009 failure of the one-time $2.4 billion credit union.

National home prices have double-dipped in April, falling .7% below previous lows experienced in March 2009, Clear Capital said in its latest Home Data Index report.