Mortgages

Wells Fargo & Co. has invited 9,500 distressed customers to a two-day Home Preservation workshop scheduled for Sept. 8 and 9 in Atlanta, the city where it introduced one of the bank's first foreclosure prevention workshops in 2009.

A coalition of industry groups is urging Congress to act quickly to maintain the GSE loan limit at $729,750, saying the pending expiration is hurting both home sales and application volume.

When the Federal Housing Finance Agency late Friday unveiled its $200 billion lawsuit against investment banking firms that sold faulty MBS to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it also targeted executives who signed the original shelf registration documents on the securities in question.

Non-distressed U.S. home prices saw their largest gain year-to-date in June as they continued an upward trend, FNC indicated in a report Tuesday.

The beleaguered mortgage business has done quite a good job of continuing to provide mortgage finance at respectable levels despite the worst disaster ever to hit it. As the fall meeting season approaches, industry executives should take a moment to congratulate each other on this before they start to plan, plot or commiserate.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond fell to another all time low early Tuesday morning – 1.92% -- as stocks sold off in Europe and American equities plunged by almost 300 points at the opening bell.

Caliber Funding, Dallas, hopes to hire dozens of new loan officers over the next few months, especially in California, according to chief executive officer Brian Simon.

The state attorneys general have a secret weapon in their negotiations with the largest mortgage servicers: the results of a HUD investigation into the banks' robo-signing practices.

TMS Funding, Milford, Conn., was launching a jumbo wholesale product at press time as higher loan amounts in general were picking up some momentum, but still appeared likely to leave a small number of relatively high-cost areas with some funding gaps due to plans for an FHA loan limit decrease this fall.

The activities that Stephen Tetzner undertakes as part of his pursuit of the mortgage banking trade have a purpose: to help strengthen the image of the industry and his business.

It appears that Florida's housing market is starting to shake off some of the doldrums caused by the mortgage crisis, as buyers start to come out of the woodwork.

If you haven't embraced blogging yet as a marketing tool, social media expert Randall Craig has a few reasons why you should.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency late Friday filed a massive multi-billion civil suit against 17 firms that played a role in selling faulty subprime MBS to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – including the government owned Ally Financial and Fannie's biggest customer at one time, Countrywide Financial Corp.

Concerns that revenue from loss mitigation and portfolio recovery could deteriorate going forward were among the reasons Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc., Irvine, Calif., said it has invested in origination operations that contributed to a relative loss of income in the second quarter.

MountainView Capital Holdings, Denver, said one of its investment funds was the winning bidder on a $282 million pool of residential loans auctioned off by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The percentage of HAMP modifications completed by mortgage servicers fell 10% in July from the prior month while the percentage of proprietary restructurings rose 11%, according to new government figures.

The delinquency rate on securitized multifamily mortgages fell 50 basis points in August, but the loans continue to be the worst performing property type in the commercial MBS market.

Mortgage companies cut 1,500 full-time employees from their payrolls in July, according to new government figures released Friday morning.

Field services provider Safeguard Properties has decided to open a second facility in Ohio to accommodate its overall business growth and expansion.

At the recent SourceMedia Loss Mitigation Conference in Dallas I sat down with industry experts for a chat on the latest in loss mit.