Only one lender accounted for more than 10 percent of the single-family mortgage volume completed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2014: Wells Fargo. The bank also dominates deliveries to Ginnie Mae and originations of jumbo mortgages. Wells had $180.89 billion in mortgage originations in 2014, accounting for 14.6 percent of total mortgage originations, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. The bank’s share of mortgage originations declined from 18.9 percent in 2013 as refinance activity slowed and nonbanks made efforts to compete for production and servicing. Officials at Wells said...

The fourth quarter was Nationstar’s worst production quarter of the year.

Ocwen Financial – once deemed the fastest-growing residential servicer in the nation – is now facing huge shrinkage and is undergoing what some analysts and investment bankers are now calling a managed or “controlled” liquidation. The questions facing investors and business partners of the company is how fast can Ocwen shrink and what will be left for shareholders other than a pile of cash. “This could be...

Falling interest rates tripped up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the fourth quarter, indirectly leading to sharp declines in profitability despite continuing gains in their key mortgage-backed securities guaranty fee operations. Together, the two government-sponsored enterprises earned $1.54 billion in net income during the fourth quarter of 2014, down 74.3 percent from the previous quarter. With their retained portfolios in shrinkage mode, net interest income was down 11.9 percent from 2013. The big factor was...

Property characteristics and appraisals have accounted for an increasing share of the issues that delay closing of purchase mortgages, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage FinanceHousingPulse Tracking Survey. Real estate agents participating in the survey cited property issues as causing 22.5 percent of closing delays in January, based on a three-month moving average. That’s up from a 16.5 percent share as recently as October. The increase appears...

Fed chief Janet Yellen also signaled a continuation of the status quo for interest rates...

New Residential will pay roughly $18.25 a share for HLSS, valuing the deal at $1.3 billion.

The sale and transfer must first be approved by Freddie and its regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

In case you’re wondering, Ocwen services roughly $208 billion of non-agency product.