“We’re well into this year’s home-buying season and too many potential buyers and sellers are sitting on the sidelines because they’re afraid they can’t qualify for a home loan before they’ve looked into it,” said loanDepot's Dave Norris.

Before joining the FHFA in late 2011, Hornsby spent 26 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the last 10 under Janet Yellen, who is now the nation’s central banker.

Sixth-ranked Freedom Mortgage Corp. bucked the overall trend with a 19 percent increase in TPO deliveries to the agencies.

Redwood Trust officials said its next jumbo MBS likely will be issued late in the second quarter.

“They’re either going to shut their doors, merge or sell out to someone else,” one M&A advisor told Inside Mortgage Finance. “We could see 2,000 firms disappear.”

Of late, nonbanks are showing an increasing interest in buying delinquent loans out of Ginnie Mae pools.

CSP watchers say the GSE platform is starting to look like an orphan under director Mel Watt. But will Watt mention the project in his first public speech next week?

Purchase mortgages accounted for 44.4 percent of California’s first-quarter 2014 production, compared to 52.0 percent nationwide.

Based on what Freddie's Layton said, one might think that going forward, the GSEs might barely break even. Maybe that’s why the GSEs – and not necessarily Mel Watt – want to hike their guaranty fees…

Still, April MBS issuance by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fell short of the anemic $47.0 billion issued in January of this year.