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.

A nonbank wholesaler, Carrington is allowing credit scores as low as 580 for FHA and USDA mortgages, along with some VA loans.

One executive familiar with the practice of signing bonuses noted that typically the money is paid out over 12 months, but if the LO does not repeat their past performance the bonus can terminate in a given quarter.

The new ownership filing on Walter Investment comes at a time when short interest in nonbank mortgage firms is increasing.

Mark Mozilo, a principal in CALCAP, told IMFnews that he is seeing more competition in the hard money space.

The new service from Freedom Mortgage will handle all aspects of the mortgage transaction, from the initial customer call to closing and servicing of the loan.

The FHA allows low downpayments on loans that have credit scores as low as 580, but numerous lenders have established their own underwriting overlays to protect against poor performance.

Two pages of data showing the top 30 sellers of agency mortgages in 2013 with a break-out for each lender listing average credit scores, debt-to-income ratios, loan-to-value ratios, loan size, purchase-mortgage share and refinance share. All characteristics are shown for the origination channel (retail, correspondent and broker) at each lender.

Mortgage products offered by lenders haven’t changed much since the 1930s and are in a primitive stage, according to Robert Shiller, an economist who helped develop the Case-Shiller home price index. In a new paper published by Yale University’s Cowles Foundation for research in economics, Shiller pushes for greater innovation in the mortgage industry. He is currently a professor at Yale and for years has advocated a product he developed, “continuous workout mortgages,” to no avail ...

In mortgage banking, logic dictates that when loan production drops dramatically – as it has the past four months – originators cut back on compensation. But that isn’t stopping some lenders from offering huge signing bonuses to top performers. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Trends, a few nonbank lenders are paying hefty bonuses to lure certain loan officers away from their current employers. One nonbank lender based in California reportedly paid a $1 million signing bonus recently ...