Mortgage bankers of all sizes continued to report strong earnings on their mortgage banking operations during the fourth quarter of 2012, but the salad days may be over.

The FHFA is getting closer to announcing risk sharing bonds for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

HLSS may branch out and buy mortgage servicing rights from companies other than Ocwen.

Nationstar Mortgage closes on servicing deals.

Most securities issuers and investors who attended this week’s American Securitization Forum ASF 2013 conference in Las Vegas were optimistic about the market. “We are seeing demand that we have not seen in years,” said Michael Binz, a managing director and business leader of North America ABS at Standard & Poor’s. Binz noted that the mood at the conference a year ago was starkly different, with fewer investors, diminishing supply and regulatory uncertainty. About 5,660 people registered to attend the conference this year, up from 5,000 last year, according to Tom Deutsch, executive director of the ASF. Deutsch noted...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said it has settled one of its numerous lawsuits against non-agency mortgage-backed securities issuers for misrepresenting deals that were sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the mortgage market collapse.

Home Loan Servicing Solutions, which was spun off by Ocwen Financial Corp. a year ago, this week issued $1.15 billion of asset-backed term notes...

The government-sponsored enterprises are working several different risk-transfer pilots and will soon issue the securities, according to officials at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Non-agency MBS investors appear eager for the securities, though a number of regulatory concerns remain, including complications with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Patrick Lawler, chief economist at the FHFA, said a risk-sharing transaction will hopefully be issued in the “not too distant future.” Speaking at the American Securitization Forum’s ASF 2013 conference this week in Las Vegas, Lawler and other officials with the FHFA and GSEs said risk-sharing transactions are a high priority this year. “The commitment is...

Although mortgage profits reported for the fourth quarter, so far, have been strong, trouble may lie ahead for the sector with lower gain-on-sale margins and moderately contracting spreads, according to analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Inside Mortgage Finance shortly will publish its final 4Q ranking of FHA lenders, but it appears that the October-December period was one of the strongest in terms of loan production in quite some time ...plus other mortgage briefs.