The White House this week finally made up its mind on a new regulator for the government-sponsored enterprises, picking conservative economist Mark Calabria to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Now comes the hard part: Getting the Senate to hold confirmation hearings and actually approve him.

Home-equity lending remains one of the soft spots in the mortgage market, as the supply of loans outstanding continued to shrink and new lending volume remained anemic in the third quarter. [Includes three data charts.]

Mark Stafford, a principal in MS Capital Advisors, New York, said larger firms are content to stay the course…

The complaint further alleges that company executives have been aware of the poor EPD rates since 2011 but apparently did nothing to resolve the problem.

Loans from 36 lenders will be included, led by Sprout Mortgage with a 43.3 percent share.

Marshall has a long resume in financial services, including stays at Bank of America, The Blackstone Group and other shops…

The home-equity market peaked back in 2007 at $1.133 trillion in outstandings. It has been in an 11-year swoon since then.

Cloudvirga, at one time, was headed by industry veteran Bill Dallas...

Some good news: Fannie chief economist Doug Duncan said continued strength in borrower demographics and the labor market offer hope that conditions should stabilize in 2019 and may even improve.

Kraninger on the recent name change of the agency: “I care more about what the agency does than what it is called…”