Mortgages

Today is the final deadline for submissions for our 2011 survey of loan officer production. The top 150 in terms of dollar volume will be featured in May's Origination News.

Reputation is everything in a business such as mortgage originating, where the consumer needs to trust the person they are doing business with.

Over the past few months eWarehouseOne has been gaining somewhat of a buzz among small to medium-sized nonbanks that have been searching high and low for a good deal in warehouse financing. But at the same time, these very same lenders have been asking a very basic question: who exactly are these guys?

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman's efforts to carve $15 million out of the state's $132 million national mortgage servicing settlement fund to provide foreclosure prevention assistance to New Yorkers came to fruition only a few days shy of the fund's expiration date.

Banc of Manhattan Capital, Woodland Hills, Calif., is taking bids on a $26 million pool of re-performing whole loans, servicing released.

The aggregate value of loans collateralized by commercial MBS increased 50 basis points in February from the month prior, continuing an upward trend, said DebtX, a Boston-based loan sales advisor.

The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed rate loan fell to 3.99% for the week ending March 29, compared to 4.08% the week prior, according to new figures compiled by Freddie Mac.

Coming off two straight profitable quarters and flush with capital from its recent public stock offering, HomeStreet Bank, a top ranked mortgage lender in the Seattle area, is back in the good graces of its regulators.

The House of Representatives this week passed legislation that protects confidential information banks and thrifts submit to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - but it appears nonbanks operating in certain states are not covered under the language.

The firm’s Mortgage Fraud Risk Report found that incidents of employment and income fraud increased 14% during 2011. This follows an upward trend seen over the last two years in which these fraud activities occurred 45% of the time.

Although Wells Fargo & Co. won't talk about its 'exclusionary' list of third-party lenders, correspondent loan buyers doing business with some of the firms say they wound up on the list mostly because of buyback disputes with the megabank.

Continuing its expansion in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Eagle Bancorp, Bethesda, Md., has opened a pair of residential loan offices in Maryland and Virginia.

The largest banks are charging relatively high interest rates to borrowers that qualify for a government refinance program, according to analysts, who say that the trend bodes well for mortgage profits in the second quarter.

Residential servicers completed 65,000 foreclosures in February, an 8% decline from the prior month and just about flat from the same period a year ago, according to new figures compiled by CoreLogic, Santa Ana, Calif.

Allowing the controversial Transaction Account Guarantee program to expire on schedule this year could provide a critical boost to the Federal Home Loan Banks, according to a new argument by opponents of the government guarantee.

The National Association of Realtors reports that sales prices are continuing to fall, from an average of nearly $200,000 five years ago to around $172,000 today. A decline in average sales prices translates into a decline in average loan amounts - and since most mortgage loan originators are paid a basis points commission on the loan amount - that means less money for you.

Federal Reserve Board member Elizabeth Duke in a recent speech highlighted how the focus of government-assisted community development has shifted to preserving and disposing of existing housing from building new housing.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency will decide sometime in April whether the higher incentive fees the Treasury Department is paying are enough to justify allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to do principal reductions for the first time.

Bank servicers initiated more trial modification plans, and initiated fewer foreclosure actions in the fourth quarter than the previous one, according to a new report from the Comptroller of the Currency.

Builder Meritage Homes Corp. has priced $300 million in senior unsecured notes due 2022 to qualified institutional buyers under Rule 144A.