Originations

Mortgage application volume increased last week behind a surge in refinance and purchase activity.

Mortech has introduced a platform that enables mortgage lenders to create a customized website for their personal brand and business.

The California Housing Finance Agency is offering an additional $6,500 in down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers who qualify for its CalPLUS Conventional program.

The institutionalization of peer lending is pulling banks into more competitive bidding for loans as originators expand into newer and untested asset classes, such as online real estate loans.

Mortgage insurer Radian Guaranty Inc. reported a nearly 5.6% month-over-month increase in the volume of new primary mortgage insurance written in September while claims on delinquent loans declined.

Consumer confidence in the housing market rebounded in Fannie Mae's latest national consumer attitudes survey.

Builders in Phoenix and areas from Sacramento, California, to Orlando, Florida, are sweetening offers as sales slow in some of the country's most volatile housing markets.

Interthinx has partnered with Collateral Analytics to launch an automated appraisal, collateral evaluation and mortgage origination compliance risk assessment tool.

B of A mortgage strategists are concerned these underserved borrowers will keep housing market activity at "anemic levels."

Home prices increased 6.4% in August compared to a year earlier, according to data from CoreLogic.

DocMagic, a document provider for the mortgage industry, said that it has launched a version of its service through Liquid Logics' cloud-based loan origination system.

MountainView Management Co. plans to buy nonprime mortgages made to borrowers with credit scores in the mid to low-600s, maximum 80% loan-to-value ratios and balances as high as $2.5 million.

Stonegate Mortgage Corp. announced last week that it has formed a new direct-to-consumer mortgage origination business called Stonegate Direct.

Hometown Lenders in Huntsville, Ala., and Sun West Mortgage Co. in Cerritos, Calif., are paying a hefty price for hiring and allowing convicted felons to do business in Georgia.

The lesson in a recent consent order is clear — an MSA cannot shield or rehabilitate an otherwise impermissible arrangement.

Federal Home Loans Banks officials and others want more time to evaluate and comment on a Federal Housing Finance Agency proposal to restrict FHLB membership.

Recent regulatory settlements have made it abundantly clear that medical records are off-limits to lenders trying to verify the incomes of mortgage applicants on long-term disability.

According to Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and many other others, the moribund market for private-label residential mortgage-backed securities needs reviving.

Take a look at what is truly holding back being able to increase your production and how to create a fix for it.

Every successful lender is familiar with those periods when an operations staff that had previously been working feverishly on a big pipeline of loans is suddenly faced with much less work.