Applications have picked up in April, May and June but firms that focused too heavily on refis are now feeling the heat.

GSE mortgage sellers repurchased a slightly larger volume of defective single-family mortgages during the first quarter of 2018, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis.During the first three months of the year, lenders repurchased or made other indemnification on $240.91 million of home loans sold to the GSEs, a 4.6 percent increase from the record low set in the fourth quarter of 2017. Buybacks of Fannie loans were up 27.2 percent, but ... [Includes one data chart.]

FHA officials have begun raising alarms about the rising proportion of higher-risk mortgages being endorsed by the agency. A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities data suggests they have good cause for their concerns

“We didn’t observe any meaningful change in purchase loan application trends compared to earlier years,” said Archana Pradhan of CoreLogic.

One former loanDepot official had this to say about the rumor: “It makes sense. loanDepot has plenty of loan officers handling inbound leads. Amazon could create a ton more and compete with Quicken….”

Secondary mortgage market activity cooled dramatically in the first quarter of 2018, according to bank call report data analyzed by Inside Mortgage Trends. [Includes one data chart.]

Mortgage banking operations generally lost money on loan production during the first quarter of 2018 but managed to more than make it up with positive servicing results, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association quarterly performance report.

Movement Mortgage is bypassing the traditional mortgage tech-development process in its quest for a mobile operating system for loan officers. The nonbank retail lender recently launched a crowdsourcing challenge, inviting 10 firms to develop prototypes with the chance to win a $25,000 prize and fully develop the operating system.

Mortgage vendor Mortech recently launched a tool that can help lenders and servicers identify borrowers who are likely to list their homes for sale within the next 90 days. The vendor is owned and operated by Zillow Group, a company best known for its individualized home-price estimates.

Ten years ago, as the nation’s housing market began to hit the skids, Wells Fargo ruled the lending roost with JPMorgan not too far behind. Today, in terms of origination rank, the top dogs still dominate the origination business, but their grip on the totem pole is tenuous at best.