Mortgage rates are back up for the week ending Jan. 11, 2018, following Treasury yields, according to the latest results of the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released Thursday morning.

Purchase-money mortgages are the bread and butter in primary mortgage-insurance activity, but refinance loans also played a role in the continuing climb in private MI market share during the fourth quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis.

Depository institutions had gradually expanded their footprint among the top 100 mortgage lenders over the past year or so, but nonbanks stepped on the gas during the third quarter, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, has questioned whether Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, inappropriately capitalized on some Inspector General con-cerns about the agency’s data security to unjustifiably freeze the bureau’s collection of consumer per-sonal information, thereby compromising examiner oversight functions.

Mortgage servicing is mistakenly overlooked when it comes to housing-finance reform discus-sions and research on the business is sparse, according to an Urban Institute paper released this week.

Borrowers looking to convert home equity into cash could lean toward cash-out refinances rather than home-equity loans due to changes in the newly enacted tax bill.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General said the recent uptick in the purchase of adjustable rate mortgages by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, especially since November 2016, bears watching as a potential emerging risk.

Members of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit convened early this week to consider legislation that would affect Home Mortgage Disclosure Act enforcement and certain institutions regulated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – mostly smaller players.

A former FHA commissioner called for the restructuring of the agency as a government corporation within the Department of Housing and Urban Development with its own separate appropriation, budget control and risk-management capabilities.

CFPB Acting Director Mick Mulvaney has less than 200 calendar days left to occupy the director’s chair, so industry officials have been wondering what they can expect from the bureau as long as he’s in charge.