Mortgages

The Senate this week passed a six-month extension of the National Flood Insurance Program and supporters are hopeful the House will act quickly to prevent any disruption in the issuance of new policies.

Thanks to a growing refinancing boom that gathered steam in the third quarter, small mortgage banking companies benefited as their profits per loan more than doubled during the period.

PHH Corp., Mt. Laurel, N.J. has priced an add-on offering of $100 million of debt, to replace the $250 million debt offering it cancelled on Dec. 2 due to market conditions.

MRN Cubed, a mortgage outsourcing and consulting firm and the parent company of e-mortgage technology vendor SigniaDocs, acquired default management workflow vendor DepotPoint.

Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp.'s delinquent loan inventory declined by over 4,000 loans between October and November, while the amount of primary new insurance written remained consistent for the third consecutive month.

The first phase of the HARP 2.0 program is now underway, and seller/servicers that control GSE MSRs appear to be in the best position when it comes to refinancing high LTV Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans.

Finding new customers and getting more business from current ones are the top two business pressures facing mortgage bankers today, according to the results of a survey taken by Comergence during the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention in Chicago.

The average weekly 30-year mortgage rate for the sixth week in a row is not far from record lows and pretty close to 4%, according to Freddie Mac.

Think about it - there are very few occupations where you are all things to all people.

Wells Fargo & Co. – as the industry is quite aware – is a dominant force in both residential production and servicing, but it continues to tower above all competitors in the GNMA MBS market.

The trend of U.S. credit cardholders putting credit card payments ahead of mortgage payments that began in early 2008 shows no sign of abating in the immediate future even as the economy gradually improves, TransUnion LLC analysts say.

After rating the performance of its top 10 HAMP servicers, the Treasury Department said JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America need to make further improvements before they receive incentive payments from the government.

The mortgage industry is having growing concerns about a payroll tax relief measure that would raise GSE guarantee fees by 12.5 basis points, using the additional revenues to pay for other government programs.

Between foreclosures and paying down their loans through "cash-in" refinancings, the nation's mortgagors are continuing to whittle down their housing debt-and that's bad news for the nation's servicers.

A Georgia bank and nearby homeowners association management company have resolved five months worth of unpaid homeowners association claims with the help of Sperlonga Data & Analytics.

According to a Government Accountability Office report, while banks "are not properly maintaining" the growing number of vacant and foreclosed properties nationwide, resources required to demolish the large number of long-term vacant properties have exceeded local budgets.

JCF Real Estate has been named the court-appointed receiver on seven additional Illinois properties during the third quarter.

Citigroup Inc. has started job cuts this quarter that will affect nearly 4,500 people, chief executive Vikram Pandit said on Tuesday.

REH Capital Partners and the Algon Group have formed a strategic alliance to handle large complex restructurings for distressed hospitality industry stakeholders.

Matt Morris, who was recently appointed as chief executive of Stewart Information Services Corp., Houston, has created an executive team at the company.