Mortgages

Data provider CoreLogic has released an enhanced version of its RiskModel, which is a commercial analytics application utilized by the major banks and regulators to project future RMBS prepayments, defaults, losses and cash flows.

Amid lingering questions about the fate of a broad mortgage servicing settlement, many see the creation of a joint task force to probe mortgage abuses as hope that those negotiating the settlement can work out their differences.

RiskFinder Distress enables users to track and analyze key distress events throughout the life cycle of a loan. This computer product provides investors and lenders the information needed to evaluate risk, determine the impact of distress sales on loss severity estimates, drive loss mitigation strategies and identify markets that are starting to recover.

Kinecta Federal Credit Union, Manhattan Beach, Calif., posted a $30.6 million loss for 2011, citing problems with its mortgage business.

PHH Corp., which saw its CEO depart a few weeks ago, late Thursday named Charles Pizzi, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, to its board.

A new national refinancing program unveiled by President Obama earlier in the week will rely on the Federal Housing Administration to refinance private and GSE mortgages, according to a report from Federal Financial Analytics in Washington.

Citigroup Inc. will no longer purchase "medium or high-risk" loans that could result in buyback requests from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, in the bank's latest effort to improve the quality of mortgages it buys from correspondent lenders, according to an internal memo obtained by American Banker.

The value at risk metric employed by every major banking institution offered the appearance of safety until taxpayer bailouts were the only option to save the financial system. Today, regulators are examining historical factors to determine what defines a "safe" mortgage in order to calculate capital adequacy and risk retention requirements.

Trapped between conflicting requirements that indicate collapse and abolition prospects, the debate over the future status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is emerging as one of the year’s biggest concerns for insiders and academics.

New York Community Bancorp Inc., Westbury, N.Y. said its fourth quarter profits of $118 million were in part fueled by $25 million in income from mortgage banking, driven by refinancing activity during the period. For the full year, NYCB's net income was $496 million, up from 2010's $560,000.

New home sales fell 6.5% in 2011, but many economists are forecasting that home buying will rise this year.

Old Republic International Corp.'s mortgage guaranty business lost $163 million for the fourth quarter and $678 million for the year, 48% worse and 160% worse than the same periods one year ago, as claims costs intensified throughout the year.

Positive housing data from the end of 2011 nudged the average weekly rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage back upward by 10 basis points to 3.98% in Freddie Mac's primary market survey, reversing a three-week trend of record-setting lows.

If there is one thing that has been lacking over the years for many mortgage originators, it is customer loyalty. And it is a two-way street—both sides have tended to treat the transaction as a one-off deal.

President Obama Tuesday night made a few specific references to the mortgage industry in his State of the Union speech, but never did he once use the phrase "loan broker" or try to paint these third-part salesmen as the evildoers of the housing crisis (as he has in the past.)

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said President Obama's decision to expand investigations into home lending and sales of MBS could stop settlement talks with the states over foreclosure practices.

Despite lingering challenges real estate agents and lenders currently face when selling foreclosed and bank owned properties, these homes continue to make up a high percentage of all sales nationwide through the third quarter of 2011 even though it's lower than the previous quarter.

The Villages, an active-adult property west of Orlando, was the country's best selling master planned community in 2012, according to data collected by John Burns Real Estate Consulting.

Astoria Federal Financial Corp., one of the nation's largest thrifts, posted a net profit of $11.8 million in the fourth quarter, almost half of what it earned in the same period in 2010.

A major hurdle for the mortgage industry in 2011 that may continue to pose a significant risk this year is ineffective quality control. Interthinx identified two defects in the outsourced quality control programs of lenders that affected residential mortgage loan files—missing documentation and inaccurate information.