Roughly 60 percent of the nonbank's fourth quarter originations came through the consumer-direct channel.

"Assuming we achieve our cost, volume and other business objectives, and the market unfolds as forecast, we expect core earnings before notable items to be breakeven to modestly profitable for 2016," said CEO Glen Messina.

Suddenly, mortgage firms left and right are buying back common stock in the open market...

Mortgage delinquency rates continued their upward trend in the fourth quarter of 2015 with the highest percentage of delinquencies recorded for the year, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance Large Servicer Delinquency Index. About 5.98 percent of the $5.194 trillion in home loans covered in the survey were in some stage of default as of Dec. 31, 2015. That was up from 5.85 percent in the third quarter of last year, but down from the 6.53 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. The number of loans that were more than 90 days late witnessed the largest uptick, growing from 1.62 percent to 1.71 percent. The only category that showed any kind of a decrease was...[Includes one data table]

“It is time to shrug off the naysaying consultants and lawyers who breed a culture of fear and hypothesized problems to hype their services,” Cordray added.

Fairholme is feeling the heat from investors over poor performance, with Berkowitz noting the fund’s returns have “put us in the dog house.”

Several groups of traditional insurance companies have substantially increased their borrowing capacity from the FHLB system as well.

Currently, employers are required to pay overtime for all employees who make $23,660 or less annually.

Non-traditional forms of credit also will be taken into account on the new product

Among the MI standouts: Arch Mortgage Insurance, which had a hefty 108.9 percent increase in traditional flow business...