The irony cannot be missed: the mortgage insurance sector is profitable again, but its trade group likely will fold.

New FHFA Director Mel Watt is expected to shakeup some of the senior staff at the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID, are drafting their own housing finance reform/GSE bill that likely will be superimposed over the Corker-Warner measure.

Western Bancorp said it will lend to borrowers with credit scores as low as 620 and the loans are available to non-owner-occupied properties and first-time homebuyers.

However, a year-over-year look at the data shows a much poorer performance across the board, with overall grievances up 42 percent at Dec. 31, 2013, versus year-end 2012.

Among other things, Fitch sees the compliance/cost squeeze leading to a wave of industry consolidation in the mortgage servicing industry.

The sale was disclosed in a new SEC filing. The MSRs are backed by $10.8 billion of Ginnie Mae product.

One mortgage executive had this to say about the W.J. Bradley case: “This is fascinating for the implications of whether the LO or the company owns the customer. As you know, LOs have their little black books (or thumb drives) of all their customers and their information."

In fact, the ATR rule “does not require lenders to offer any specific type of mortgage,” the guide says. “Lenders can offer any mortgage they believe a consumer has the ability to repay, as long as they have documentation to back up their assessment.”

The FHA reviewed 6,692 government-insured loans between July 1 and Sept. 30, 70 percent of which were home-purchase loans.