Mortgages

California's home builders suffered through their third lowest year on record in 2011. The only thing that kept the year from being worse was the apartment sector, which rose sharply.

Vacant property registration ordinances were created to help protect vacant and abandoned homes from neglect and prevent them from becoming nuisances. Local municipalities use them to collect current and accurate contact information about the lien holder of record, allowing officials to issue prompt notification when a code violation occurs.

The Federal Reserve will not sell any of its massive holdings of agency MBS and Treasuries until 2015 as it strives to keep interest rates low, central bank officials said Wednesday afternoon.

Delinquencies on mortgages controlled by Freddie Mac rose to 3.58% in December, the highest reading in nine months for the GSE, and a sign that it likely will continue to post operating losses in the immediate quarters ahead.

President Obama's decision to create a new task force to investigate risky lending and securitization practices leading up to the financial crisis could complicate and delay a potential $25 billion settlement involving foreclosure and servicing abuses.

Home prices rebounded in November with values falling in only one of the nine regions tracked by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

To help "stabilize housing markets" over the next five years Wells Fargo will invest $10.5 billion in Los Angeles and $1.3 billion in Atlanta through an initiative that aims to expedite bank-owned property sales and foreclosure prevention options.

Mountain Real Estate Capital ended fiscal year 2011 by closing on two bank note acquisitions of approximately 150 performing and nonperforming loans that totaled over $100 million.

Radian Group Inc., Philadelphia, has entered into a series of transactions with Assured Guaranty Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda, which will eventually add $100 million to its mortgage insurance subsidiary's statutory capital.

Economists at the National Association of Realtors are forecasting an almost 7% increase in existing home sales in 2012, following a 2% improvement last year.

GNMA chief Ted Tozer has been trying in vain to get more mortgage firms to issue MBS, but Wells Fargo & Co. continues to increase its grip on the government market.

It makes your head swim doesn't it? In 2011 alone, the mortgage industry averaged 22 mortgage rule changes per month according to www.MortgageCurrentcy.com - and that was just for loan originators. It seems like every day, there's a new social media platform. Phone apps. Everyone and his brother and sister are talking about new ways to use them in your mortgage practice.

The growing number of community banks starting warehouse lending programs has to be gratifying to the executives at Titan Lenders Corp., Denver. It was just three years ago they were so concerned about the future of this business they called for Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to fill the need.

Flagstar Bancorp Inc., Troy, Mich., lost $45 million for the fourth quarter, which represents a vast improvement over the $192 million loss for the same period in 2010, attributing the results in part to "near-record revenues from our mortgage banking business."

Mortgage loan application volume declined by 5% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ended Jan. 20, as interest rates on some fixed-rate loans rebounded from their all-time lows, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The results for the current survey include an adjustment to account for the Martin Luther King Day holiday.

Many fondly recall their kindergarten years. The teachers had a supernatural power to transform children into students while also starting the learning process of basic life skills. Interestingly, many of these kindergarten lessons are just as important for financial services executives today, even more so for mortgage bankers going through tough times.

Fannie Mae's final multifamily issuance numbers for 2011 are in and they reflect a 50% increase from the previous year, according to an executive at the government-sponsored enterprise.

With online listing, vacancies, a flush of foreclosed properties and a sour economy, REO assets have become a hotbed for criminal activity. Everything from prostitution to copper stripping has been reported in areas with high foreclosure rates. Once a property becomes vacant, it can easily fall prey to criminal infiltration and become a real liability for an entire community.

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.

Dealing with residential servicing issues is nothing new for Richard Cordray, the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The former Ohio attorney general says he has been "wrestling with servicing problems" for many years.