Mortgages

A quarter-to-quarter decline is due to higher mortgage rates and seasonal factors.

Approximately two-thirds of unpaid principal balance represents office properties and most are in major markets.

The current events discussion on the Mortgage Grapevine has moved from the government shutdown over to the baseball playoffs.

The portfolio is going up for bid on Oct. 17 and is reportedly from an entity that originally planned to be a buyer rather than seller.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis president James Bullard said the government shutdown reduces the odds the Federal Open Market Committee this month will taper $85 billion in monthly bond purchases.

MGIC and Radian gain on news that NMI is going public.

Residential mortgage lender MCS Mortgage Bankers has made an addition to its senior leadership team by naming Barbara Kapps as the company’s new chief financial officer.

Interest rate concerns that forced mortgage REITs to trade at the lowest valuation during the past few years will be less of an issue going forward.

A bipartisan group of 66 members of the House of Representatives are letting the Federal Housing Finance Agency know they don’t want to see the loan limits on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reduced.

The portfolio consists of 115 mostly fixed-rate loans, all from Kentucky.

Mortgage applications received by homebuilders with mortgage lending subsidiaries fell by 1% in September from the prior month.

The housing industry appears to be returning to a healthy market again as foreclosures nationwide continue to fall in September.

Stonegate Mortgage’s initial public offering of 7.1 million shares started off strong Thursday with its stock rising initially by almost $2 in price.

Last year was “the golden age of multifamily finance” as dollar volume increased 33% over 2011.

The average rates for 30- and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages inched up a bit during the week ending Oct. 10 in Freddie Mac’s latest survey.

Citigroup has hired Barbara Desoer, the former head of mortgages for Bank of America, to help run its retail bank.

Countering the notion that the best risk management policy for social media is not to be in that space.

Putting a hold on sending text messages to clients.

Enterprise Financial and Reliance Bancshares in St. Louis, under pressure to grow like most community banks, believe they have figured out how to expand into faraway markets yet avoid the mistakes that cost many banks during the financial crisis.

Lat week we talked about what the average mortgage bank was looking for in a loan officer, and we touched on what the average mortgage operation was looking for. But, who wants to be average?