With Continental Home Loan under its umbrella, Freedom believes its production run-rate will be $2 billion a month.

BB&T posted $80 million of mortgage banking net income in the third quarter, up sharply from a negative $21 million suffered in the previous quarter.

If housing markets are stronger than expected and rates stay low enough, originations could hit $1.421 trillion next year.

The number of residential properties that are seriously underwater declined to 8.1 million in the third quarter of 2014 from 9.1 million in the first quarter, according to a new report from RealtyTrac. Another 8.5 million properties were on the verge of resurfacing. Dan Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, said it is not yet time to celebrate. He said 8.1 million underwater properties still represent 15 percent of all mortgaged properties with an estimated $1.4 trillion in negative equity ...

Top mortgage sellers to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac appear to be focusing even more on lower-risk mortgages, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of loan-level mortgage-backed securities data. Some 62.9 percent of loans delivered in the third quarter had credit scores of 740 or above, up from 61.9 percent in the second quarter and 60.5 percent in the first three months of the year. The data exclude mortgages with loan-to-value ratios exceeding ... [Includes one data chart]

Residential production volume may not be much better next year, but that isn’t stopping certain growth-minded lenders from hiring loan officers. According to a survey conducted by affiliated newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance, 71 percent of mortgage companies plan to hire LOs – in varying degrees – over the next six months. Just 29 percent of respondents said they plan to cut staff. While a number of large commercial banks have pulled back from the mortgage industry in different ways ...

EverBank has relied on its correspondent jumbo business to help prop up loan origination volume in 2014 at a time when agency production figures have fallen way off 2013 levels. In fact, during the third quarter of 2014, 52 percent of the company’s $2.30 billion of new mortgage lending were jumbos. Jumbo production – most of it coming through EverBank’s correspondent program – was up 55 percent from the third quarter of 2013, when it accounted for 28 percent of the bank’s total mortgage originations ...

Chicago-based Guaranteed Rate claims to have significantly advanced towards the world’s first fully digital mortgage with Transfersafe, its latest cloud-based technology service for homebuyers. “Transfersafe is the next major step in our evolution of the mortgage process,” said Victor Ciardelli, company president and CEO. “We’ve already brought our online loan application to the market, which has funded more than $3 billion in loans to date.” Transfersafe facilitates instant ...

Regional banks generally reported improvements to mortgage-banking income in the third quarter of 2014, according to an analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. Third-quarter mortgage-banking income for a group of 17 regional banks rose 10.7 percent from the previous quarter and was up 12.5 percent from the third quarter of 2013, when some of the lenders reported record origination volumes. Results were mixed among the group. Flagstar Bank reported $58.40 million in mortgage-banking income ...

Homes are worth more than borrowers currently estimate, according to new indices from Quicken Loans. Last week, Quicken published a home value index based on appraisal data and a home-price perception index based on loan applicants’ estimated values. “Quicken Loans records refinancing homeowners’ estimate of the value of their home at time of application as well as the agreed upon purchase price of homebuyers and home sellers,” the lender said. “The company then ...