A handful of firms say they are still aggressively recruiting residential loan officers who have a solid background in purchase-money lending – that is, sales professionals with deep ties to Realtors and home builders.

Also note that the ATR rule provides additional flexibility to small lenders in that the safe harbor has been expanded to 3.5 percent over the average prime offer rate.

Although the settlement has been filed and agreed to by PNC, it still requires court approval.

Some 29.3 percent of home purchases completed in November relied solely on cash. That was the third monthly increase in the share of cash transactions.

Although the plague of mortgage buybacks generally grew less severe during the third quarter of 2013, a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of repurchase disclosures by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shows that the industry continues to grapple with legacy years leading up to the housing market collapse. At the end of the third quarter, loans securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises in 2007 accounted for 36.9 percent of pending and disputed buyback demands. Loans securitized ... [Includes two data charts]

Increases to the guaranty fees charged by the government-sponsored enterprises could prompt some changes for lenders. While execution with the GSEs will remain more attractive than issuing non-agency mortgage-backed securities, new loan-level pricing adjustments could shift some business to portfolio and to the FHA. The Federal Housing Finance Agency last week announced changes to GSE MBS g-fees that will amount to an average increase of approximately 11 basis points, to be implemented in March and April ...

The government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are stepping up their development of a standardized dataset to support the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recently finalized consolidated closure disclosure forms – a project that could represent a tipping point in the mortgage industry’s use of electronic mortgages, technology vendor representatives say. The GSEs’ common industry dataset that supports the CFPB’s form is called the Uniform Closing Dataset, and is one component of ...

The trend of deconsolidation among mortgage lenders is likely to reverse due to the advantages of large lenders, according to projections from Fannie Mae. “The recent decline in large-lender share of the primary market is temporary, and principally a result of cyclical factors that caused larger lenders to pull back from the market,” said Gerry Flood, director of strategic planning in Fannie’s economic and strategic research division. Flood cautioned that the projections don’t take ...

Originations of home-equity loans are up in 2013, led by credit unions.

Sales of several bulk portfolios of mortgage servicing rights were still pending as yearend approached, with talk increasing about a busy year in the mergers and acquisitions market for 2014. As always, the driver of such talk was interest rates: Higher rates are causing MSRs to increase in value, while a slowdown in refinancing is scaring many under-capitalized nonbanks into considering the once-unthinkable: selling out or partnering with a competitor. Originations are...