While conventional residential lenders try to figure out how to cut costs in what likely will turn out to be a down year for originations, nonprime firms are headed in the opposite direction – growth. Angel Oak Companies, Atlanta, the largest nonprime lender of 2016 with $700 million of production, this week announced the promotion of four senior managers and plans to double its sales force, which presently numbers 52 account executives. “We’ve already added 16 ...

Whether a potential homebuyer has a bachelor’s degree plays a significant role in the applicant’s ability to obtain a mortgage, according to research funded by Fannie Mae. The analysis suggests that the higher-education variable wasn’t much of a factor before the financial crisis, but a borrower’s level of education is a factor in post-crisis originations. Researchers at the University of Southern California probed data from a survey of households conducted by the Survey Research Center at ...

The amount of equity U.S. homeowners could access rose by almost $570 billion in 2016, reaching $4.7 trillion last year, thanks to an extended streak of home price appreciation. This was the highest level of “tappable” equity seen since 2006, according to a new report from Black Knight Financial Services. Perhaps just as impressive, an eye-popping 44 percent of refinanced mortgages in the fourth quarter of 2016 were cash-out refis, the highest level in eight years ...

As its footprint in the residential credit market expands, counterparties are looking to Annaly as a source of liquidity…

GSE originators have long complained that the rep-and-warrant policies need to be more transparent.

How much slack can the purchase market pick up? We’re about to find out…

Rep. Sherman of California noted: “Studies have shown that in some geographic areas, it is possible to determine the identity of nearly 100 percent of the borrowers using the data that lenders are required to collect and report by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.”

Deephaven is headed by former Goldman Sachs managing director Matt Nichols, who earlier this year predicted strong growth for the correspondent buyer of non-QM loans…

“Our ability to maintain or grow our servicing business may depend, in part, on our ability to acquire servicing rights from, and/or enter into subservicing contracts with, third parties,” the company said in an SEC filing.

Residential loan production picked up steam in March after a tepid January and February, while originators – both banks and nonbanks alike – kept a close eye on expenses in an effort to maintain positive cash flow. Bill Dallas, CEO and president of Skyline Home Loans, Calabasas, CA, said his company funded $650 million in the first quarter, a modest 5.8 percent decline from the same period a year ago. Roughly 75 percent of Skyline’s production was purchase loans, the exact opposite of what the company did in the year-ago quarter. “Over the past five months, since the election, the landscape has been...