One loan officer based in Southern California said he’s seeing bonus offers made to colleagues, but cautioned: “It’s true, but only if you can prove good volume today – not eight months ago.”

Fed chairman Janet Yellen told legislators: “I think it is really very important for Congress to put in place a new system to address GSE reform. I think we still have a system that has systemic risk."

Despite the news concerning a possible sale, PHH’s share price on Wednesday was trading up, but not by much. Its price is still more than $1 below its 52-week high of $26.76.

In a section entitled “Originations: Return to Profitability,” Nationstar mentions “right-sizing operations” to align with volume expectations.

Worried that New York State regulators will throw a monkey-wrench into Ocwen’s mortgage servicing acquisition plans? Don’t be.

Still, purchase-mortgage originations fell sharply in the fourth quarter, dropping almost 23 percent from the previous period, according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance.

Among the changes on the table are disclosing the loan term, total points and fees, the length of any teaser or introductory rate, and the applicant or borrower’s age and credit score.

Although Flagstar led the pack, it was the only bank to rank among the top five sellers of brokered loans.

However, ARMs remain relatively rare in the MBS market. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized only $41.6 billion of ARMs for all of last year, about 2.7 percent of their total MBS production volume.

Mortgage originators note that because the rule is more than 1,800 pages long and was issued just 10 weeks ago, there has been little time to study it, let alone consider its implications.