Mortgages

Increases in spending in the second half of 2012 suggest a remodeling recovery is already underway.

The idea that downpayment assistance can be a financially sound endeavor apparently is not dead.

This month marks the largest and most significant milestone since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launched more than a year ago.

A pair of mortgage companies owned by affiliates of Lone Star Funds, originator Caliber Funding and servicer Vericrest Financial, have agreed to combine operations to create a full-service mortgage banker.

Kofax is using more than $1 million in third-party investments to develop a data capturing business process management tool for the real estate and mortgage financing market.

While there are those in the mortgage industry who feel the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new servicer rule goes too far, Rep. Maxine Waters feels it does not go far enough.

Wells Fargo is expanding its commercial real estate operations in the United Kingdom.

FCI Lender Services has passed a SOC 1/Statement on Standards Attestation Engagements No. 16 “superaudit” of service organization controls and become a ranked special servicer.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has expanded the small servicer exemption fivefold to include community banks and credit unions that service up to 5,000 mortgages.

A post on the Mortgage Grapevine is seeking funding for construction in New Jersey.

Republic Bancorp said that in 19 months of operations, its warehouse lending business has lines of credit outstanding of $217 million from total credit commitments of $331 million.

Citigroup sold $600 million in nonperforming mortgages in the fourth quarter.

Residential Capital won court approval to try to sell a pool of defaulted loans with a balance of about $130 million.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slid two basis points to 3.38% in Freddie Mac’s latest weekly survey.

Foreclosure activity in 2012 increased in 25 states, with the majority using the court system to file the foreclosure.

Noninterest income in the fourth quarter at PNC Financial Services Group was impacted by the previously announced $254 million provision related to mortgage loan repurchase requests.

In an interview, Morris Morgan, the federal government's point man for the painstaking review of 3.8 million mortgage loans, provided new details about the $8.5 billion deal regulators cut with 10 servicers last week and how it almost fell apart during negotiations.

CoreLogic reports an additional 100,000 borrowers moved from negative to positive equity status during the third quarter of 2012.

Bank of America saw its profits fall in the fourth quarter after several mortgage-related problems were settled as a result of the financial crisis.

National Mortgage Insurance Corp. has cleared two of the biggest hurdles it faced before being able to start writing private mortgage insurance policies.