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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Producing quality loan documents and maintaining the integrity of borrower data within them will be critical for both lenders and servicers as part of meeting new requirements.

Valuation Vision, a subsidiary of The Kirchmeyer Group, has launched a new product that acts as an alternative to a traditional broker price opinion.

VantageScore Solutions has stated that 46 investors, who run the gamut, are now using its consumer credit score model in their risk and pricing models.

With record low mortgage rates, decreasing home prices and relatively mild weather throughout the country, many states are experiencing home sale increases this winter compared to previous years.

One of the most surprising questions I get on a regular basis is "Why are you still talking about mortgage fraud? Hasn't it gone away now that property values are declining, lenders are requiring full documentation to support an application, and they are checking with the Internal Revenue Service to verify borrower income?" The short answer is: no.

Not only has the housing meltdown affected state and local governments, servicers and investors, but homeowner associations too. These associations rely upon property taxes to pay for such services as utilities, trash pickup, snow removal, landscaping, and road and building maintenance, but vacancies have mitigated the number of improvements made in these communities.

The total home equity held by U.S. senior citizens increased by $46 billion in the third quarter last year, to $3.19 trillion, according to the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association/Risk Span Reverse Mortgage Market Index.

The national delinquency rate remained at 8.15% at the end of December, the same as the prior month, according to Lender Processing Services' "first look" mortgage report.

Some AMCs are looking at the UAD as an opportunity to revisit quality control processes, updating them and streamlining them where possible. Those AMCs that are not taking advantage of this opportunity should be.

Warehouse lending is becoming less popular with some of the big players who have provided it, but remaining and new market participants find it can be profitable if they can get comfortable with the credit.

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Despite seasonal trends where home sales usually decline during the winter months, December marked the sixth straight month with year-over-year gains, according to the latest figures released by RE/MAX.

The reverse mortgage loan origination business has matured to the point to where it needs a standardized loan data file format, said an executive with RMS, Houston.

An 11th-hour settlement is expected to stave off a potential class action status in a lawsuit that claims foreclosed borrowers were overcharged for attorneys’ fees that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. did not actually incur.