Consumer-direct LOs had a higher average base compensation than retail LOs but received much lower incentive payments.

AmeriHome Mortgage, a larger correspondent buyer of loans, recently said it’s hiring internal support positions.

After the end of the first quarter, PennyMac acquired a bulk portfolio of Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights with an unpaid principal balance of $4.30 billion.

Nearly all publicly held commercial banks and savings associations continued to generate a profit on their mortgage banking activities during the first quarter of 2017, but in most cases it was less than they earned in the past, according to an exclusive analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Trends. A group of 26 national banking organizations and regionals reported a combined $2.295 billion in mortgage banking income for the first quarter. Not all institutions ... [Includes one data chart]

The updraft in mortgage interest rates following the November election has bolstered the secondary market in mortgage servicing rights, and business could quicken even more if independent mortgage bankers feel profit pressure from declining margins, according to industry experts. There are more bidders in the market than last year, said David Bennett, a managing director at MountainView Capital Holdings, during a panel session at this week’s secondary market conference ...

Now that Arch Mortgage Insurance is the largest player in the MI space – thanks to its yearend purchase of United Guaranty Corp. – it has no intention of taking it easy. In a recent interview with Inside Mortgage Trends, company CEO of Global Mortgage Insurance and Reinsurance Andrew Rippert touched on future growth, including plans for further expansion into international markets, increasing the firm’s coverage into more non-agency loans, and reinsuring its mortgage risk to ...

There are sharp differences in compensation structures for loan originators who work out of retail branches and those in the consumer-direct business, according to Strategic Mortgage Finance Group. Stratmor, an advisory firm, recently released details from its most recent “compensation connection” survey, covering compensation in 2015. The results focused on traditional retail LOs and consumer-direct LOs who tend to focus on call-center/online originations. Retail LOs were found to ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are getting more business in loans with lower credit scores and higher loan-to-value ratios, a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis reveals. Some 22.08 percent of purchase mortgages securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises in the first quarter of this year had credit scores ranging from 620 to 699. That was up from 21.46 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, and it represented the highest ... [Includes two data charts]

State regulators filed a complaint last week seeking to prevent the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency from creating a national charter for nonbank financial technology companies. The charter would preempt state laws, eliminating a “patchwork” of compliance issues for marketplace lenders and other fintech companies. “If the OCC is allowed to proceed with the creation of a special-purpose nonbank charter, it will set a dangerous precedent that any federal agency can ...

Lack of basic information and knowledge about the application process and concern about rising interest rates are reasons why most homeowners are reluctant to take out home-equity lines of credit to meet their financial needs, according to a study by mortgage solutions provider Digital Risk. A company survey of 1,038 homeowners found that 21 percent have no clue what a HELOC is, while 45 percent did not even know how to apply for one. Sixty-five percent said they ...