"Assuming we achieve our cost, volume and other business objectives, and the market unfolds as forecast, we expect core earnings before notable items to be breakeven to modestly profitable for 2016," said CEO Glen Messina.

Originators that fund billions of dollars each quarter use futures and options to hedge their pipelines. It’s the smaller players that may have encountered secondary-market charges.

Suddenly, mortgage firms left and right are buying back common stock in the open market...

All three mortgage-production channels saw significant declines in volume during the fourth quarter of 2015, but the retail business fared significantly better, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Correspondent production fell 25.5 percent from the third to the fourth quarter of last year, compared to the overall 15.4 percent drop in mortgage originations over that period. The correspondent channel typically yields a higher share of purchase mortgages than either retail or wholesale-broker production, so it was relatively more impacted by the decline in purchase-mortgage lending. Still, correspondent production for all of 2015 was...[Includes four data tables]

Originations of home-equity lines-of-credit are increasing along with the average size of the loans at origination. The expansion has occurred without a significant loosening of underwriting standards as combined loan-to-value ratios and other underwriting metrics for HELOCs remain much tighter in the current market compared with pre-2008 originations. An estimated $68.5 billion in home-equity loans were originated in the first three quarters of 2015, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, up 25 percent compared with the same span in 2014. The originations have been helped by increases to home prices and an improving job market. According to CoreLogic, the average size of HELOCs originated in the first three quarters of 2015 (measuring the line’s limit at origination) was...

Private MIs finished third in agency refinance loans, partly because the Fannie/Freddie program for refinancing underwater borrowers continued to slow down.

“We see a lot of multiple offers, especially for first-time buyer ranges,” said one real estate agent based in Washington State.

“It is time to shrug off the naysaying consultants and lawyers who breed a culture of fear and hypothesized problems to hype their services,” Cordray added.

Fairholme is feeling the heat from investors over poor performance, with Berkowitz noting the fund’s returns have “put us in the dog house.”

Meanwhile, Fairholme’s case against the government is still pending and Berkowitz said from a legal standpoint, “We’re getting closer to the finish line…”