Some 32 percent of first-time homebuyers said that referrals from friends, family or co-workers had a major influence on their choice of lender, compared with only 18 percent of repeat homebuyers.

Once again, consumer criticisms about residential mortgages led the decline in both timeframes.

The wholesale division of Premier Nationwide Lending had its best month of October 2013...

However, the late January 50 basis point reduction in FHA premiums should help.

The CFPB has done much to secure its “Tableau” system, but there are a few areas that need to be improved, according to an executive summary of a new report from the bureau’s Office of Inspector General. Tableau is a commercial, off-the-shelf tool deployed on the CFPB’s cloud computing – based general support system (GSS) that provides business intelligence capabilities, such as data analysis and integration, for multiple CFPB systems. “Overall, we found that the CFPB has taken a number of steps to secure the Tableau system in accordance with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) and the agency’s information security policies and procedures,” the OIG said. For example, the OIG found that the CFPB has implemented risk ...

It’s Time to Scale Back Dodd-Frank, Industry Says. With a new Republican majority now in power and calling the shots on Capitol Hill, the industry consultants at The Collingwood Group recently asked mortgage industry officials what they thought the new Congress could do to bolster the housing market. Their answer? Rein in Dodd-Frank. “Although just fewer than 50 percent of respondents selected ‘repeal Dodd-Frank’ or ‘abolish the CFPB,’ the comments submitted clearly indicate that these industry insiders prefer a tempered approach with reasonable modifications to these two reactionary reform measures stemming from the crisis,” Collingwood said. “Many respondents stated that the Dodd-Frank Act should be revised to remove barriers to innovation and to reduce the cost of manufacturing a mortgage.” ...

One real estate agent said an unidentified lender offers preapproval letters to “anyone who walks in.”

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized $151.1 billion of refi loans during the first quarter, a 34.8 percent increase from the end of 2014.

The 90+ day delinquency rate on second liens was 0.27 percent at December 31, just about flat compared with the previous quarter.

At least three years have passed since Bank of America stopped selling new purchase-money loans into Fannie Mae securities, a drought that has benefitted at least one party: Freddie Mac. According to new figures compiled by Inside MBS & ABS, in the first quarter of 2015 BofA sold $9.57 billion of mortgages into Freddie securities, beating out Wells Fargo ($8.194 billion), which traditionally has ranked first in sales to both government-sponsored enterprises. Then again, there is...