Bank and thrift holdings of first-lien mortgages increased in the third quarter of 2012 due to non-agency jumbo mortgages as well as uncommon retention of agency-eligible loans, according to .

Industry veteran Jon Daurio, who’s trying to raise $250 million to start a new nonprime lender, is hoping to have much of the work tied to his capital raise completed by the end of the first quarter of 2013.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, a key member of the Senate Banking Committee, has secured a commitment from Acting FHA Commissioner Carol Galante to toughen agency rules to put the insurance fund on a sounder financial footing.

Outside the weather’s frightful – and inside the loan closings are piling up like snow drifts in Northern Minnesota.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development late in the first quarter will auction off a package of up to 15,000 severely delinquent FHA-insured mortgages. A portion of the loans will be offered in Neighborhood Stabilization Outcome (NSO) pools in targeted areas.

Merrill Lynch is in the market actively buying jumbo mortgages and is also looking for an executive to manage its correspondent purchases, secondary market officials told Inside Mortgage Finance.

New Penn Financial, which is barely six years old, hopes to end 2012 with $5 billion in originations – almost double of what it funded a year ago.

Lawyers involved in securitization issues said they are feeling both anxiety and relief regarding regulatory issues in 2013. The feelings have been prompted by the Dodd-Frank Act with the greatest looming issue being risk-retention requirements. “To say that there is a lot of anxiety with this rule cannot be overstated and I really think it’s an impediment to some asset classes really getting traction in 2013, particularly mortgages,” Jon Van Gorp, a partner at the law firm of Mayer Brown, said on an outlook conference call late last week. “No one knows...

The ability-to-repay rule issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will alter originations of non-agency jumbo mortgages somewhat, according to industry analysts. However, pending rules to set risk-retention requirements and define qualified-residential mortgages are a greater concern to non-agency mortgage-backed security market participants. The CFPB’s new ATR rule included special treatment for “qualified mortgages,” including a temporary exception (for up to seven years) for all agency ...

The volume and market share of non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security issuance increased significantly in 2012 compared with other post-crisis years. However, volume remains well below activity seen even before the 2005 boom in non-agency MBS issuance. Some $3.46 billion in non-agency jumbo MBS were issued last year, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database, more than four times the volume issued in 2011. Redwood Trust issued six deals last year totaling ... [Includes one data chart]