Mortgages

Declining mortgage rates during the fourth quarter fired up refinancings of high LTV loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to new Home Affordable Refinancing Program figures released Monday afternoon.

Fannie Mae has priced its third multifamily DUS REMIC of the year, a $767 million deal that is notable in that it is the first ever to have separate tranches backed by both seven-year and 10-year collateral.

Freddie Mac's first offering of structured pass-through "K" certificates backed exclusively by multifamily mortgages with a five-year term is in the works this week, and is expected to settle on or about April 11.

Since the start of the financial crisis in September 2008, mortgage companies and banks have foreclosed on roughly 3.3 million homes with no end in sight.

Wells Fargo is already contacting borrowers who might be eligible for a principal reduction as required under the $25 billion robo-signing settlement with state and federal law enforcement agencies.

Not only is PennyMac cranking up its correspondent lending platform, but the publicly traded REIT also plans to be an aggressive bottomfisher in the mortgage servicing rights arena.

In the old days every major Wall Street house and mega-lender had a whole loan trading desk. Some survived and some folded. Some continue to concentrate on CRA eligible loans, while others are actively trading nonperforming mortgages.

Residential Finance Corp., a Columbus, Ohio-based mortgage lender which last year added a retail branching business to its call center operation, has been so successful in that transition that it is moving the Charlotte, N.C.-based operations center for that unit into a space more than four times larger.

The Prestwick Mortgage Group is offering investors a GSE 'flow' servicing arrangement that could be as large as $720 million per year in MSRs.

Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told a group of business journalists Friday that he is looking forward to being held accountable by them. Moments later, he was defending the agency's power.

An appellate court decision earlier this month would provide a new avenue for borrowers to file suit against mortgage servicers that deny permanent modifications under the Home Affordable Modification Program.

An AMC launched a new software that was developed on a platform as a service provided by customer relationship management technology provider Salesforce.com.

The struggling housing market needs to look to every possible financing source. So, how are housing bonds doing? According to our sister publication, The Bond Buyer, housing bonds were off last year. But in a small victory, they were not off as much as the entire market.

The growth of social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn has aided many mortgage originators in their ability to communicate with their customers. But for the companies they work for, these tools could be a compliance nightmare.

The definition of perfectionism is "a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less." That definition sounds like a personality characteristic that could help every loan professional succeed. But what if being a perfectionist could actual hinder your success?

On March 7, U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake sentenced Paige Kinney, aka Jamielee Miller, to 15 years in prison. Kinney had previously pleaded guilty to various charges related to a mortgage fraud scheme and to charges of bankruptcy fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and bank fraud in two separate indictments.

Last year's repeal of the final remaining vestige of Regulation Q, the prohibition of payment of interest on business demand deposits, at long last completed a pro-competitive process which began with the Monetary Control Act of 1980. The repeal was and is a good idea.

If it's springtime it's time for one of the things I anticipate the most in the mortgage calendar.

In case you haven't been paying close attention and reading the National Mortgage News website (and our paper weekly) the past year, there's a gargantuan shift underway in the mortgage industry. We correctly predicted that the servicing side of the business is 'deconsolidating.'

Collateral Intelligence has signed on with FICO to provide valuation and support for the credit risk provider’s analytic solution that predicts borrowers who are at risk of strategically defaulting on their mortgages.