“Home prices cannot rise faster than incomes and inflation indefinitely.” – David Blitzer, managing director of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones.

One of the most speculative stock bets out there – buying shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – is looking more like a sure thing these days, thanks to the recent pick of Mick Mulvaney, R-SC, to head the Office of Management and Budget in the new Trump administration. At least that’s how some industry officials and market watchers view it, including the Washington-based research firm Cowen & Co. In a report issued earlier this week, Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg called the choice of Mulvaney for OMB chief “the most bullish sign yet that the Donald Trump administration will favor a solution to housing finance reform that includes a continued role for Fannie and Freddie.”

The retail channel accounted for 91.7 percent of Wells Fargo’s jumbo production during the first nine months of 2016…

Reducing subsidies also would help renew private sector participation in the secondary market, the Congressional Budget Office believes…

This summer, Bright co-authored a GSE white paper with former Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Ed DeMarco…

The mortgages in the CRT deal have seasoned for an average of 10 years and are serviced by Select Portfolio Servicing.

Mortgage origination and sales continued to rack up hefty earnings during the third quarter of 2016, but a rebound in servicing profits had an even bigger impact on the bottom line, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports from 13 major public companies. With a combined $189.5 billion in mortgage originations during the period, the 13 firms reported $2.38 billion in production and secondary-marketing income. That was up ... [Includes one data chart]

Loan origination and secondary marketing pushed profits to a four-year high during the third quarter of 2016, according the latest Mortgage Bankers Performance Report released by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The average mortgage-banking entity earned $3.492 million in net income after adjustments during the third quarter, the MBA reported. That was up 42.8 percent from the previous period and represented the highest average profit since the fourth quarter of ...

Mortgage lenders that generate a lot of jumbo home loans tend to rely heavily on their retail production platforms, while third-party originators play a bigger role in agency-eligible production. That’s one finding from an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of exclusive survey data collected by Inside Mortgage Finance. Lenders participating in the survey reported that 80.3 percent of their third-quarter jumbo production came through their retail platforms ... [Includes two data charts]

Another non-agency lender has received a rating from Fitch: Angel Oak Home Loans...