Originations

The average 30-year mortgage rate tracked in Freddie Mac’s latest weekly survey came in slightly lower than the previous week, ending an upward week-to-week trend seen in recent surveys.

Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded $1.7 billion in Washington Mutual-issued securities backed by first-lien, alternative-A credit, payment-option adjustable-rate mortgages with negative amortization.

David DiStaso has been given the title of chief financial officer at iStar Financial Inc., New York. He has been functioning as the company’s principal financial officer since April.

You gotta love Betty White. In the movie You Again, released in September, she portrays a high school girl’s grandmother, and in one scene a boy is asking for her granddaughter’s phone number. Of course it’s White’s character who responds with hers.

While existing home sales were better than expected by most in the industry—up 7.6% in August—the numbers are still the weakest seen in 10 years, and housing experts do not expect a speedy recovery.

Origination technology developer Calyx Software acquired Loan-Score Decisioning Systems, Inc., a technology provider whose offerings include a product and pricing engine, an automated underwriting system and eligibility decisioning for Federal Housing Administration mortgages.

Distressed sales contributed to a 9.2% month-to-month climb in California’s resales of detached single-family homes as the median price dropped below the $300,000 mark for the first time since February.

Home values are starting to turn the corner and move in a positive direction, according to the U.S. real estate market forecast from Veros Real Estate Solutions.

Come next year rising rates could lead to significant production declines at several lenders with smaller nonbank firms heading for the exits, predicted Total Mortgage Services president John Walsh.

Sales of existing single-family homes jumped 6.7% in November after falling 2% in October, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Mortgage bankers originated $26.4 billion of Federal Housing Administration-backed loans in November, an 8.2% jump from the prior month, but delinquencies jumped as well.

Mortgage application volume decreased by 18.6% over last week on a seasonally adjusted basis, as refinance activity fell by 24% to its lowest level since the end of April, according to new figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

As we move into the fun and chaos of the Christmas holiday week, things are really busy here at Reverse Mortgage Success while we prepare for our launch of RMS 2.0 as well as on the origination side. Last week I had the opportunity to conduct one of my favorite (and most productive) reverse mortgage marketing strategies. Many of you already know where I'm going with this—you guessed it, I taught a group of Realtors a course on reverse mortgages. And better yet, they got continuing education credit. And even better than that, it cost me zero.

Cornerstone Mortgage, Houston, of the largest remaining privately held nonbank lenders in the U.S. is in the hunt for a merger partner — and is actively talking with several banks.

We are reaching the end of 2010 and it is typical for many people to use this period to take stock of their actions and develop their strategies for the coming year. For Art Sobczak, the president of Business By Phone Inc., this means sales people asking what he called "the end-of-year cleansing question."

Shareholders of First Niagara Financial Group, and NewAlliance Bancshares Monday overwhelmingly approved their merger agreement despite strong disapproval from Connecticut officials.

The Inspector General's Office of HUD wants WR Starkey Mortgage to reimburse the Federal Housing Administration $360,000 for actual losses on four loans where downpayment assistance was arranged by an entity that was not a registered charitable organization.

CMG Mortgage Services has a steady investor/partner for its popular "Home Ownership Accelerator" loan product, but the nonbank originator is talking to a handful of mid-sized depositories that hope to portfolio HOA mortgages too.

The Federal Reserve Board announced its final rule on Aug. 26, 2010 (published in the Federal Register on Sept. 24, 2010) regarding the loan originator compensation components of a proposed rule published in August 2009.

A net branch manager has successfully settled a labor dispute with his employees, but now the parent company won't pay him. Is it time to sue or should he go to the state labor board?