The titans of the industry – the four banks with over $1 trillion in total assets – shrank their mortgage portfolios by a combined 0.5 percent over that period.

Mat Ishbia, CEO of United Wholesale, stressed that interest-only mortgages are for “well informed” borrowers.

One senior mortgage manager, who has been in the business for 25 years., said despite what lenders may say about closing times, actual experience is probably worse. “No one is closing under 30 days,” he said. “Most will be over 50 days.”

To date, most of Citadel's mortgages have been sourced through loan brokers, but recently the company hired a correspondent manager, Alan Peviani...

A unit of Cerberus Capital Management is preparing to issue a non-agency MBS backed by loans that have seasoned for an average of 8.9 years...

Big banks have attracted considerable attention as they have reduced their footprint in the mortgage market. Although nonbank lenders and servicers have taken up most of the slack, a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis reveals that small banks have been taking a bigger role in the industry. Commercial banks and thrifts have been building their holdings of unsecuritized home loans at a time when the overall supply of mortgage debt has been ... [Includes one data chart]

The nation’s megabanks reported modest to strong growth in residential production for the second quarter, a likely harbinger of what might be a stellar showing by some of the nation’s nonbanks, which have been steadily gaining market share the past few years. According to a tally from Inside Mortgage Trends based on earnings reports issued this week, Wells Fargo was not only the market leader in originations with $62.0 billion in the second quarter ... [Includes one data chart]

Although some mortgage originators might brag – or even advertise – that they can close a loan in under 30 days, it’s not likely to happen, at least not in practice. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Trends over the past two weeks, a variety of factors can derail a closing – including many circumstances that an originator just cannot control. Such circumstances can include insufficient funds on the part of the borrower, scheduling mix-ups ...

While reform of the nation’s housing system and the government-sponsored enterprises languishes on Capitol Hill, three important GSE risk-sharing innovations could revolutionize housing finance independent of Congressional action, according to experts at the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center. “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have guaranteed at least half of all new mortgage originations for the past eight years. The two GSEs’ critical role ...

Consumer advocates are calling for reforms that would address servicers’ use of property preservation companies in instances where a home appears to be vacant and scheduled for foreclosure. In recent years, more than 250 lawsuits have been filed in at least 35 states against property management firms who were acting on behalf of servicers, according to Christopher Odinet, an assistant professor of law at the Southern University Law Center. In a paper published ...