Mortgages

Here's a taste of a story appearing in the Monday edition of National Mortgage News: Brian Simon, CEO of Caliber Funding, in a recent interview predicted that his company could grow originations by threefold or fourfold in 2012.

Commercial real estate property owners might not have enough equity to refinance their properties as loans originated in 2007 become due throughout this year, warns one expert.

Aurora Loan Services, Denver, on Friday finally made it official - the troubled mortgage firm will no longer accept new loan registrations or locks, but will continue to service its current mortgage customers.

Last week's blog focused on clarifying the rules for producing branch managers. This week, we will discuss some creative compensation strategies. My preferred way of compensating producing branch managers is to set them up on a traditional profit and loss model, but treat the "profit" as a fixed amount of basis points per loan amount. In other words, all expenses remain deductible.

Principal reductions, such as those agreed to in the state AG settlement with five large servicers, may help residential MBS performance in some ways but hurt in others, according to a new report from Fitch Ratings.

The government's bulk sale initiative to turn foreclosed properties into rentals could be "counterproductive" in certain states, according to the National Association of Realtors which is demanding the initiative be scaled back.

Online-only mortgage lender Quicken Loans said it has openings for 1,400 positions, primarily in its downtown Detroit office, including 300 technology jobs.

For the first time in more than 20 years, market research and analytics firm Mortech LLC did not conduct its annual lender survey and will not publish its annual mortgage industry trends and analytical report.

It's all about opportunity. Bank of America and Ally Financial recently tossed their correspondent lending divisions overboard. On the surface, some may look at these exits and shout, "The sky is falling." But the smart money knows that such departures spell opportunity.

Gateway Mortgage Group, Tulsa, Okla., this week launched a new correspondent lending division that will purchase conforming and government loans from depositories and mortgage bankers, with the aim of retaining the servicing rights.

What do the federal bureaucrats who run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac know that private mortgage lenders don't?

Wells Fargo & Co. is in the market with a $270 million package of nonperforming residential mortgages, according to investors and investment bankers who play in the space.

You pick up the phone. The person on the line starts the conversation by asking what the interest rate is on your 30-year fixed rate loan.

Due to the seasonal declines in home prices and slowing foreclosure pipeline which is depressing home prices, the negative equity share rose in late 2011.

In an effort to reduce foreclosure rates among military families, Hope Now facilitated an event that brought together mortgage financiers and stakeholders with the focus being on prevention of foreclosure for military families.

Lenders increasingly want to control the marketing done by individual originators due to increasing industry compliance concerns, according to one vendor in the space.

Foreclosure activists rallied outside the San Francisco home of Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf recently, armed with life-size cardboard cutouts of him inscribed with the unflattering tagline, "Wall St. Robber Banker."

Federal Housing Administration single-family endorsements rose 9.5% in January from the prior month while the percentage of seriously delinquent government loans inched up to 9.8%.

Electronic signatures have been legal in the United States since 2000. But a lack of acceptance at the Federal Housing Administration and the Internal Revenue Service has prevented some lenders, even technologically advanced ones, from using the technology for any mortgage documents.

Viewpoint Bank, Plano, Texas ended the year with $1.15 billion of warehouse commitments on its books, a 53% gain over 12 months.