Mortgages

Last summer when MetLife revealed that it would sell its "forward" mortgage business the company did something smart for its workers: it paid for its loan officers to take classes and obtain their state licenses.

ATLANTA - Loan originations on income-producing properties will rise 17% this year to nearly $230 billion, the Mortgage Bankers Association is projecting in its first-ever nonresidential lending forecast.

Mortgage applications declined 1% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending February 10, driven by an almost 9% seasonally adjusted drop in purchase applications, according to figures compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Last week I wrote about the need for marketing to connect with the consumer on an emotional level. This is especially true if the product you are selling is or nearly is a commodity.

Boxing reminds me a lot of today's lenders. Most lenders get into the ring every day, fighting until someone drops. The reason however is not to win a match, but to prevent a repurchase.

The Siegel Group, a commercial real estate company that specializes in the disposition and development of underperforming assets with significant turnaround potential, recently partnered with a small private investment group to purchase a foreclosed Las Vegas hotel for $4.2 million.

Fannie Mae has expanded its online platform to collect and manage real estate offerings for its HomePath properties throughout the country.

Eli Braha, principal of the privately-held real estate company Berkley Acquisitions, is launching a $100 million fund that will seek to invest mainly in opportunistic and distressed assets in the New York metropolitan area.

Dozens of commercial buildings, retail properties, homes, office buildings, home sites and land currently owned by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will be put up for auction in early March by John Dixon & Associates.

The $77.6 million HomeStreet Inc. expects to raise in its initial public offering would go a long way toward improving its capital levels but not far enough to satisfy a regulatory order.

The bankruptcy trustee for Thornburg Mortgage this week agreed to settle for $6.5 million a lawsuit against the company's former executives and legal counsel to settle charges that they engaged in a conspiracy to secretly use the failed jumbo lender's employees and assets to launch a new company.

Roughly 43% of borrowers with 30-year loans who refinanced into a new product during the fourth quarter chose shorter maturities, the highest reading since 2003.

Word is that initial fair lending exams underway under the auspices of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, some passed on from their original regulator, are largely focused on pricing.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development this week shut the door on Farm Credit System lending institutions entering the Federal Housing Administration program, following stiff opposition from the American Bankers Association.

WASHINGTON - Federal officials and state attorneys general released new documents Tuesday about the $25 billion multi-state servicing settlement, but still have yet to release a final settlement term sheet.

The Obama administration is urging Congress to extend a tax provision allowing troubled homeowners that complete a short sale -- or benefit from a principal reduction -- to avoid paying taxes on the discharged amount of their loan balance.

Politicians - including those in the White House - continue to jawbone about how the private sector needs to step up and create a whole new securitization market that some day will replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This effort - supposedly - starts with the safest non GSE product out there: jumbo loans where well-heeled borrowers put down (say) 10% and are so filthy rich that their chance of default is next to nil.

I've lived (and originated loans) in three states over the last 10 years and an interesting thing happen one day. I got a call on my home phone from an old client. This was a client I had helped a numbers of years earlier, in another state.

GA Keen Realty Advisors recently announced that the landmark H&H Bagels property in New York sold for $11 million at bankruptcy sale. The buyer of the property was not disclosed.

Radian Guaranty's delinquent loan inventory grew by 500 loans in December, but then fell by 1,000 units during January.