Hedge fund manager Pershing Square Capital Management is facing a bit of a dilemma in regard to its huge investment in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac common stock: take profits off the table now – while it still can – or go for broke, hoping for a huge payout later on. At last check, Pershing – the brainchild of veteran investor Bill Ackman – owned roughly 9.98 percent of Fannie and 9.77 percent of Freddie. It accumulated the shares earlier in the decade at an average price of $2.30 for Fannie and $2.14 for Freddie. Today, Fannie’s common trades...

With interest rates on mortgages expected to go up this year, some lenders are putting an emphasis on loan originators who can close purchase mortgages. Economists at the Mortgage Bankers Association predict that the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage will climb from 3.70 percent last year to 4.50 percent in 2017. The higher rates will help prompt a 47.7 percent decline in refi volume in 2017 compared with the estimated $901.0 billion in refi originations last year, according to the MBA. Dave Stevens, president and CEO of the MBA, said...

According to one media report, two men were shot execution-style inside a mortgage business on Staten Island Tuesday night...

Industry groups are calling for better ways to minimize the market disruption that may come in the wake of the Trump administration’s decision to suspend the recent 25-basis-point reduction of the FHA mortgage insurance premium. The suspension of the fee cut was announced Jan. 20 by Genger Charles, general deputy assistant secretary for housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, pending a review by the incoming administration. The pricing change was scheduled to take effect for loans with a closing or disbursement date of Jan. 27 or later. The moratorium has...

The new administration of President Trump wasted no time in trying to fulfill his campaign promise to roll back the tide of regulation, issuing on the day of his inauguration a freeze on new and pending regulations from executive agencies of the U.S. government. What effect this will have on mortgage lending regulation is unclear, at this point, but it’s likely to be temporary, industry insiders agree. According to a memo issued by White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, unspecified “executive departments and agencies” were...

The Citadel CEO noted that his shop is receiving many unsolicited resumes from mortgage workers employed at conventional shops, a sign that some firms are about to cut staff.

Total revenues at Clayton, its mortgage and real estate services division, increased by 10 percent to $52.6 million.

Mortgage originations defied expectations in the fourth quarter and held virtually even with the previous period, despite a measurable increase in mortgage interest rates. According to exclusive new Inside Mortgage Finance estimates, some $580.0 billion of first-lien mortgages were originated during the fourth quarter of 2016, a slight 0.9 percent drop from the third quarter. That lifted total production for the year to an estimated $2.065 trillion, up 19.0 percent from the 2015 total. Industry forecasters were...[Includes two data tables]

According to the Mayer Brown law firm, “Financial services companies that hoped for immediate regulatory relief when the Trump administration assumed control may have to wait a bit longer…”

To be sure, individual lenders were all over the map in their reported production trends. A handful of top producers reported significant increases from the third quarter, including loanDepot, which was up 13.4 percent…