Originations

The average profit on each loan originated in 2015 by independent mortgage banks and mortgage subsidiaries of chartered banks jumped by more than $400 from the previous year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

PulteGroup's founder and largest stockholder hired lawyers from a shareholder-activism practice, a sign that he'll increase pressure to get Richard Dugas to step down immediately as the homebuilder's chief executive officer.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau faced hostile questions from two judges during oral arguments before a federal appeals court Tuesday as it sought to argue the constitutionality of its single-director structure in a lawsuit brought by nonbank mortgage lender PHH Corp.

Data breaches have become scarily commonplace. But even small financial institutions can take action to thwart hackers and minimize losses.

Commerce Union Bancshares in Brentwood, Tenn., plans to close mortgage offices in Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky and to transfer the employees to Bridgeview Bank Group in Bridgeview, Ill.

PHH Corp. said its loan closing dollar volume will decrease this year, after Bank of America's Merrill Lynch announced plans to withdraw business from the firm.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments Tuesday about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's structure, in a case that has national implications. Even though a ruling isn't expected until the end of the year, legal experts say there are four major legal issues involved.

Commercial and multifamily originators closed $504 billion in loans last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Learn how the some of the industry's most successful loan originators get it done with these tricks of the trade from the 2016 Top Producers rankings' top 20 loan officers of the Midwest.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's experiments with selling credit risk to investors are a critical element of new plan to merge the two entities and move them out of conservatorship, but what form so-called credit risk transfers take could make a big difference.

Mortgage professional hiring and new job appointments for the week ending April 8.

Eight years after subprime mortgages all but disappeared, U.S. buyers with bad credit can still own homes.

The total number of loan programs being marketed declined in March, as fewer conventional offerings offset a loosening of standards on government products, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Consumers are feeling a growing pessimism about the direction of the economy that appears to be spilling over into the housing market in March, Fannie Mae said.

Mortgage rates fell to their lowest level in more than a year, reducing borrowing costs during the peak season for home buying.

According to the American Bankers Association's quarterly report on consumer delinquency trends, late payments on home equity loans and home equity lines of credit have dipped below 15-year averages for the first time since the Great Recession.

Credit market turmoil continued to take a toll on commercial property prices in February, when Moody's/RCA Commercial Property Price Indices national all-property composite index declined for a second consecutive month.

The majority of first-time homebuyers plan to skip the starter-home step and move straight into the home that would meet their long-term needs, according to the Homebuyer Insights Report from Bank of America.

As the pressure builds for mortgage lenders to offer digital — specifically mobile — tools, innovators in the space are encouraging the industry to keep the customer as the focus in designing new offerings.

First-lien mortgage originations totaled $1.82 trillion in 2015, a 43% increase from the previous year, according to Equifax.