At Sept. 30, Freedom Mortgage serviced $28.69 billion of home mortgages, an impressive 75 percent jump from the same period a year earlier.

Impac Mortgage originated $576.2 million of home loans in 3Q, a 26 percent sequential decline.

The focus on purchase mortgages became urgent as interest rates started to increase in May, settling for the moment about 100 basis points higher than they were in April, reducing demand for refinances.

The last time private MIs did more business than either the FHA or the VA was back in the first quarter of 2008. At that point, however, private MIs accounted for well over half of primary MI new business.

On Thursday morning, Fairholme chief Bruce Berkowitz said, "We’re talking to everyone about this plan,” then added: “We’d love to talk to Treasury.”

The STACR deal was structured so that Freddie Mac will take the first 30 basis points of losses on the transaction, followed by private investors, which bought debt notes on the following 300 basis points of potential losses.

Are mortgage bankers so diabolical that they attempt to find a way around new regulations? Industry consultant Joe Garrett of Garrett, McAuley & Co. thinks so.

One trade group official told Inside Mortgage Finance that despite efforts by the Federal Housing Finance Agency to create g-fee parity for lenders of different sizes, there has been little in the way of progress.

Cash-out refis are at all-time lows compared to the peak in 2006 when $84 billion in equity was withdrawn by consumers.

Pete Carroll's mortgage credentials include a stint at Overture Technologies, a mortgage technology firm based in the Washington, DC, area.