The mortgage slowdown will separate the men from the boys, the girls from the ladies. It's time to fire all underperforming loan officers, says mortgage consultant David Lykken.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency spent the last two weeks racking up several legal settlements in its massive litigation action against some of the nation’s financial institutions. Look for more to come predict industry analysts. On Oct. 25, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $4.0 billon to settle claims on $33.8 billion of non-agency mortgage-backed securities purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $67.7 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the month of October, a 13.8 percent decline from September but a 4.6 percent rise for the first 10 months of 2013, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. October’s decline was less steep than September’s 20.0 percent month-to-month fall off in MBS.Top-ranked Wells Fargo’s Fannie and Freddie securitization at $11.6 billion fell both on monthly and year-to-date bases by 27.0 percent and 23.3 percent respectively. [Includes one data chart.]

Traders sold off their positions in Nationstar's stock Thursday. The firm reported lower earnings and will exit the broker channel.

Redwood started acquiring agency mortgages from correspondent lenders in mid-October. The REIT noted that the activity helps create mortgage servicing rights for it to invest in.

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.

Figuring out the details on how to structure, capitalize and operate new secondary-market facilities for small lenders are key challenges for the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee as it pushes to mark up mortgage reform legislation by the end of this year. This week, lawmakers pushed lender trade groups to come together and find answers. The bipartisan Senate blueprint for secondary mortgage market reform includes several key provisions designed to facilitate small-lender access when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no longer around, including creation of a new mutual or cooperatively-owned institution through which lenders could issue conventional mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the government. If a new MBS mutual for small lenders is going to be competitive, it will have to be capitalized...[Includes one data chart]

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...

“At the end of the day, we’re still dealing with a one-sided contract with a significant termination option,” said Jonathan Jaffe, an attorney who works on GSE buyback issues.