The Mortgage Bankers Association this week declined to participate in a panel discussion on FHA hosted by the American Enterprise Institute because the trade group did not believe the discussion would be balanced and though it would favor only a certain point of view. The topic was “FHA from 1934 to 1938: Lessons for Wealth Building,” with Ed Pinto, a resident fellow at AEI, and Dave Stevens, MBA president, as presenters. Stevens, however, decided to pull out of the event when he saw the format. In a letter to the AEI organizers, Stevens said he agreed to be a presenter thinking the debate “would be a balanced approach.” “When I first agreed to do this, I did not expect that the format would be 45 minutes of [Ed Pinto] and then no more than 12 minutes for me to respond,” he wrote. “That’s an extremely lopsided approach that did not appear to be ...

Lenders funded an estimated $20 billion of new home-equity lines of credit during the third quarter, a 17.6 percent gain from 2Q, according to IMF.

Loan Care Servicing, an affiliate of Black Knight Financial, subserviced $110.0 billion at Sept. 30, up 47.4 percent from a year ago.

Home-equity lending continued to grow during the third quarter of 2014 – in fact, it was the fastest-growing segment of the mortgage market – but depository institutions reported further declines in the unpaid balances of these assets on their balance sheets. Lenders funded an estimated $20 billion of new home-equity lines of credit during the third quarter, up 17.6 percent from the previous three-month period. That compared to a 9.8 percent increase in total mortgage originations during the period, and it was the best quarterly HEL production figure in five years, according to Inside Mortgage Finance estimates. Still, the supply of home-equity loans outstanding fell...[Includes three data charts]

The OCC said two banks exited the residential mortgage business in 2014 and another two plan to exit in the coming year.

A handful of other large national wholesalers offer LPMI, including United Wholesale Mortgage.

Plunging oil prices have led to a sell-off in stocks and a flight to quality, namely U.S. Treasuries and agency-backed MBS.

Based on the upward production trend over the last three quarters, it appears the private MIs are on their way to a strong close at year-end.

As of September 30, banks and thrifts held $15.50 billion in repurchase reserves, most of it tied to Fannie/Freddie loans.

Aquiline is headed by Jeffrey Wayne Greenberg, son of former AIG chairman Maurice “Hank” Greenberg.