Certain provisions of the loan originator compensation rule – such as those having to do with record retention, anti-steering and compliance and procedures – kick in January of 2014.

An estimated 86.4 percent of new mortgage originations were packaged into MBS during the first half of 2013, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. Despite some growth in the non-agency jumbo market, primary market lenders remain focused on production that they can safely securitize through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. Securitization rates generally climb...

IBM announced last week that it is offering a digital loan-processing platform that will allow borrowers to engage in the loan application process via a smartphone or tablet. Eric Ray, a general manager of IBM’s financial services sector, said the IBM Digital Loan Platform will help lenders connect with borrowers. “We believe delivering a transformational customer experience will differentiate future mortgage leaders from the pack,” he said. “By partnering with IBM, lenders can out-maneuver ...

Thanks to declining refinance activity, the long-awaited slowdown in originations is finally here with mortgage professionals starting to worry about their jobs. For now, it appears that most of the employment losses – at least those at the megabanks – have come in the area of “back office” workers, including loan processors and underwriters. But servicing and due diligence-related positions also have been cut because of improving loan quality. Mortgage banking firms shed 1,200 positions ...

Declining origination volume and narrower secondary market margins squeezed mortgage production income during the second quarter of 2013, but servicing income continued to improve, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The average firm participating in the MBA’s quarterly performance survey reported pretax income of $3.068 million during the second quarter. That was down 16.0 percent from the first three months of the year and the lowest quarterly profit since the first quarter of 2012 ...

The refinance market may have largely spent itself for now, but the future of the purchase-mortgage market looks bright – and the path to success in that space is mobile technology, according to a leading industry executive. “The mother of all purchase markets is brewing,” said Bill Dallas, CEO of Skyline Home Loans, during a webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance this week. “The market is coming off a purchase bottom and is ready for a shift to purchase.” The Mortgage Bankers Association projects that ...

Rising interest rates, falling prepayment speeds and a strengthening secondary market in mortgage servicing rights combined to push MSR valuations significantly higher during the second quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call report data. Banks and savings institutions serviced a total of $4.869 trillion of home mortgages for other investors as of the end of the second quarter. Collectively, they estimated a fair market value of $48.70 billion for their MSR assets ... [Includes two data charts]

A widely-expected reduction in conforming loan limits in 2014 by the Federal Housing Finance Agency will likely be confined to a handful of states, but that’s not stopping industry stakeholders and advocates from worrying about the implications of tighter credit for middle-income homebuyers in high-priced markets. Currently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans are capped at $625,500 in high-cost areas and it’s been stuck at $417,000 for everywhere since 2006. According to an analysis by Barclays Capital, the FHFA currently has the authority absent additional legislation to lower the base GSE conforming loan limit under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Lowering the conforming limit would in turn reduce the high-cost limit.

The official watchdog of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s regulator wants to know what’s the holdup with the GSEs’ implementation of new accounting practices to write off overdue single-family residential mortgages. Last month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General dispatched a “management alert” to the FHFA seeking answers as to why an advisory bulletin directing the GSEs to classify any single-family residence loan delinquent for 180 days or more as a “loss” has yet to be implemented. OIG issued the bulletin in April 2012, but the FHFA has given Fannie and Freddie until Jan. 1, 2015, to fully implement it.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago will issue mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Ginnie Mae and backed by mortgages originated by member financial institutions, the two entities announced jointly this week. The new conduit product, called the MPF Government MBS, is an offshoot of the Chicago Bank’s Mortgage Partnership Finance program. The new product is intended to provide smaller mortgage lenders that lack direct access to the secondary mortgage market another option for their home-buying customers. Lenders will be able to choose whether to retain or release servicing on the government loans they originate with a reliable channel for selling their loans, according to FHLBank of Chicago President Matt Feldman.