S&P believes the gap in execution between whole-loan sales and securitization has started to narrow.

However, the VA loan program does not require a downpayment, which is a major attraction for some borrowers.

How much a loan officer earns can be determined by where his/her leads come from.

Since early September, at least 14 mortgage company acquisitions have been announced publicly, according to a database of deals compiled by Inside Mortgage Trends.

The proposed inter-agency rule covers only flood-insurance premium escrows and detached structures.

There was one piece of good news: Freddie Mac managed to boost its share of the GSE market up to 40.6 percent for all of 2014.

The average credit score on the 10th percentile of purchase mortgages increased from 555 in 2000 to 655 at the end of the third quarter of 2014.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision recently proposed replacing credit ratings with loan-characteristic metrics for determining capital requirements on bank holdings of residential MBS and commercial MBS. Federal regulators in the U.S. note that the proposal is preliminary and any changes to U.S. capital requirements will go through a notice and comment process separate from the BCBS’ activity. The current standardized approach established by Basel for determining capital requirement riskweights prescribes the use of external credit ratings for residential MBS and commercial MBS, among other holdings by banks subject to capital requirements. “While acknowledging that credit rating agencies play an important role in financial markets and that external credit assessments provide valuable information that may assist in the analysis of credit risk exposures, the hard-wiring of external credit assessments into standards, laws and regulations may often lead...

The national director of retail sales at a top-20 ranked lender is out in the cold. Details to follow...

Jumbo lenders continue to loosen underwriting requirements in an effort to compete for volume. Some lenders are even offering jumbos with loan-to-value ratios as high as 95 percent, while three years ago a 70 percent LTV ratio was the norm. “We’ve seen a fairly rapid loosening of standards on jumbo loans,” said Michael Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, during an event hosted this week by the Urban Institute. “They’re still tight, but now you can get a 5 percent down jumbo loan. And minimum credit scores have been coming down.” The MBA’s Mortgage Credit Availability Index has shown...