Originations

Although some mortgage lenders are seeing a noticeable decline in originations and have even cut staff, Union Bank of San Francisco is coming off its best production quarter ever.

Jordy Castillo, one of the few young originators in today’s market, plans to be a top producer.If there has been one lament from mortgage industry participants over the downsizing in terms of employment as a result of the housing crisis, it is that many of those who left were the younger generation.

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ—Mortgage company owners and managers can piece together employment agreements in a fashion where they can avoid or mitigate the damages caused by a minimum wage/overtime lawsuit, explained an attorney who is an expert in these matters.

We recommend that the U.S. housing finance market of the future should be governed by four basic principles:I. The housing finance market—like other U.S. industries and housing finance systems in most other developed countries—can and should principally function without any direct government financial support.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working on simplifying the mortgage disclosure process and industry groups are just as busy—drafting their own disclosures to influence the new agency.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's chief of bank supervision says he will be ready on July 21 to start examining the nation's 110 largest banks.

Home values are still falling, but at a less dramatic pace, according to the new CoreLogic house price index.

The private mortgage insurance companies will not report profits in the first quarter but there should be continued improvement in credit trends and operating performance, said a report from Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

The old saying went, “a little inflation is good for real estate.” The idea was that a small dose of inflation each year lifted home values and home equity and made owning—and selling—homes more attractive.

Working in the Bay Area, I'm often asked to help brilliant engineers improve their leadership and communication skills.

If loan volumes are slowing, don’t tell that to TMS Funding of Milford, Conn. The nonbank residential lender recently hired six wholesale account executives and plans to hire more.

Not only is business booming over at the FHA, but HUD secretary Shaun Donovan told Congress this week that the government insurance fund could earn $10 billion on new loan guarantees in fiscal 2011, which ends September 30.

It's finally April and thousands upon thousands of new home listings are hitting the market – but a key source of homebuyer financing, the Federal Housing Administration program, will shut down Friday night if Congress cannot reach terms on a budget deal.

Now that rates are rising and home refinancings are on the decline, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage this week notified 1900 workers they will be let go in May.

Fitch this week followed through on its warning of last month and cut Republic Mortgage Insurance Company's insurer financial strength rating down to junk levels.

With the exception of a slight drop in the currently little-used one-year Treasury ARM, the average rate for most common loan types continued to inch up during the week ending April 7 — a trend that one lending executive believes could give a boost to "assumable" FHA loans.

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ—Executives at Credit Plus Inc., Salisbury, Md., are taking the initiative to remind the mortgage industry of the need to protect consumer credit data it gets during the application process.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." That's great for the elementary school playground, but in the world of customer service, words count. What we say to customers can have an enormous impact on how customers view us and how we view ourselves.

Although lawmakers were ostensibly supposed to debate ways to overhaul the structure and authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a hearing Wednesday in a House Financial Services subcommittee was sidetracked by questions over whether the agency should exist at all.

Mortgage Technology magazine will again recognize innovative technology developers and the lenders that benefit from those advances with its Top Service Providers and Tech Savvy Lenders awards. These recognitions have a long tradition in the mortgage finance and technology industries and are among the most coveted awards in the space.