Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have almost "repaid" their debt to the U.S. Treasury. But will it change the debate on the future of the GSEs?

How many loans per month should a loan officer be closing when times are lean? According to Dave Lykken of Mortgage Banking Solutions, if an LO isn’t closing at least six loans per month, they might want to consider employment elsewhere.

A few weeks back, many servicing brokers were predicting a land rush to close deals by year-end, but there’s a new school of thought that predicts sellers might wait until early 2014 to unload some of their deals. “While we don’t expect the [mortgage servicing rights] deal flow to turn off completely for 2013 just yet, we have noticed quite a slowdown in the marketplace as compared to the summer and early fall,” said George Christo, executive vice president of The Prestwick Group. “Many of our conversations with buyers and sellers have pivoted to setting the table for the first quarter of 2014 settlements.” Moreover, the frothy prices being offered for MSRs are...

Nationstar and PennyMac led the ongoing charge of non-banks into the mortgage servicing business during the third quarter of 2013, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking. The two companies reported increases in their servicing portfolios of 17.9 percent and 19.1 percent, respectively, from the end of the second quarter. The other stand-out big gain was a 14.2 percent increase in servicing reported by EverBank. Non-bank servicers accounted...[Includes one data chart]

The REIT is just starting to purchase MSRs. At the end of September it had $15.7 million of mortgage servicing rights on its balance sheet, but that figure should rapidly change in the quarters ahead.

According to Bill Dallas, his young firm hopes to table fund as much as $20 million in November, its first full month of operation

Rep. Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the panel, is promising that GSE "stakeholders" will have input on her housing reform bill.

The loans in the new Redwood deal have the strong characteristics associated with jumbos, including an average credit score of 766 and a combined loan-to-value ratio of almost 71 percent.

Bank of America led all residential firms in cumulative mortgage complaints: 23,004 at the end of September. Wells Fargo was a distant second with 12,261.

When it comes to auditing mortgage lenders, does the CFPB know what it’s doing? It all depends on who you talk to. Also, the FHFA cracks down on force placed insurance (again).