Mortgage production volume remained fairly steady in the second quarter as a growing purchase-mortgage market helped offset a weakening in refinance lending, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. Mortgage lenders originated an estimated $495.0 billion of home loans during the second quarter of 2013, down just 1.0 percent from the first three months of the year. That pushed year-to-date production volume to just shy of $1 trillion, and put the market 14.4 percent ahead of the pace set during the first six months of 2012. It figures...[Includes two data charts]

FHA Commissioner Carol Galante this week expressed support for bipartisan reform legislation in the Senate that would provide the agency with tools it had requested to strengthen its finances and operation. Further discussion and clarification, however, may be needed with regard to certain provisions as well as issues that were not addressed in the draft bill, she said. Galante appeared as the sole witness at a hearing called by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs to consider a draft of the FHA Solvency Act of 2013. The Senate bill is significantly narrower in scope than the FHA provisions included in a broader mortgage finance reform bill approved by the House Financial Services Committee this week. The Senate bill would help...

The jumbo loans in the new Redwood deal are relatively young. But 72 lenders are feeding mortgages into the security.

The rating services have raised concerns about the representations and warranties on the new JPM jumbo deal as well as geographic concentration risk.

Statebridge, which was founded in late 2008, is looking to grow its subservicing platform. The company is licensed in all 50 states.

FHFA sued UBS in 2011 over $4.5 billion in RMBS securities that the bank sponsored and $1.8 billion in third party RMBS sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Loan applications are strong at Citadel, a newly launched nonprime lender. HUD goes on furlough for a day.

It has been a bad month for nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSROs) as plaintiffs pummeled Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Corp. and Fitch Ratings with lawsuits in state courts, seeking damages for allegedly fraudulent investment ratings of pre-crisis non-agency MBS. On July 9, liquidators of two Bear Stearns funds sued the three rating agencies and their parent companies in New York state court for more than $1.12 billion in damages, as well as punitive damages, over allegedly inflated ratings of purportedly “high grade” securities. Geoffrey Varga and Mark Longbottom, the joint official liquidators of Bear Stearns, brought...[Includes one data chart]

Redwood Trust, not surprisingly, was the top jumbo MBS issuer in the first half of 2013, according to exclusive rankings from Inside MBS & ABS.

Not only are nonperforming residential mortgages being placed into new securities, but so are re-performing loans.