With mortgage debt outstanding climbing by 0.4 percent during 2Q, the share of securitized loans fell to 64 percent at June 30, the lowest level since 2012.

MBA chief Dave Stevens noted: “We’ve seen that before, when enforcement does replace regulation, and that’s our greatest concern.”

In August, first-time buyers accounted for 56.9 percent of agency purchase mortgages, up from 54.5 percent a year ago.

A $1.5 trillion year is doable: according to survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, residential funders originated $805 billion in the first half.

Marketplace lending – otherwise known as peer-to-peer lending – is becoming more of a “thing” for institutional investors, hedge funds, venture capital firms, and even banks these days, but there are plenty of risks lurking in the bushes as well as other operational challenges, according to ratings service analysts. “While marketplace lending has enjoyed increasing growth and acceptance, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services believes a measured and cautious approach is warranted to properly evaluate this segment, which exhibits unique and heightened risks,” S&P credit analysts Ildiko Szilank and Timothy Bartl wrote in a new report. Among the risks they identified is...

Are you ready for a government shutdown, one that could screw up the mortgage market? If not now, maybe later in the year...

Mortgage banking income rose substantially in the second quarter of 2015 mostly because lenders sold more loans in the secondary market, but the outlook for the second half of the year is murkier. Commercial banks and thrifts sold $198.64 billion of home loans during the second quarter, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data. That was up 19.9 percent from the first three months of the year, and it represented the busiest ... [Includes one data chart]

Credit standards appear to be easing more than they have in the past few years in both the government-sponsored enterprise market and non-GSE lending, according to Fannie Mae’s most recent lender survey. Medium and large-sized lenders both reported a notable easing of credit standards for the first time in seven quarters. The gap between lenders reporting easing as opposed to tightening over the second quarter increased to 20 percentage points for ...

The housing market showed the signs of a typical seasonal slowdown in August, according to results from the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. While purchase-mortgage lending could soften in the coming months, the home purchase market looks stronger than it was a year ago. Tom Popik, research director of Campbell Surveys, said comments from a number of real estate agents across the country suggest that the housing market ...

Correspondent lenders generated 32.1 percent of the home loans securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae during the second quarter of 2015. More than either other channel, correspondents excelled at finding homebuyer borrowers, 51.9 percent of their second-quarter production, while refinance loans accounted for 56.5 percent of total agency business. Heavy purchase-mortgage volume meant correspondent loans had lower ... [Includes one data chart]