One warehouse executive, speaking under the condition his name not be used, said “Luckily for us, compared to January, things are great.”

In the first quarter, among the top ten, the biggest correspondent production gainers were Nationstar Mortgage and Stonegate Mortgage, both nonbanks.

There seems to be a growing trend of foreign banks rethinking their position in the U.S. mortgage market.

Commercial banks and savings institutions generated $3.37 billion in mortgage banking income during the first quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call reports. First-quarter bank and thrift mortgage banking profits were down 36.2 percent from the fourth quarter of last year and 56.2 percent off the robust $7.70 billion the industry earned in the first three months of 2013. The first quarter of 2014 marked the lowest ... [Includes one data chart]

A decline in refinance activity has prompted a number of lenders to turn to correspondent producers in an effort to boost originations. While correspondent lenders could anticipate better pricing due to the demand for their originations, firms buying the production concede that it’s not the most profitable origination channel, suggesting that pricing might not improve much. Big banks continue to dominate the correspondent channel while reducing ...

Mortgage servicing rights will never trade as freely as mortgage-backed securities, but agency officials say they are considering ways to facilitate the increasingly active MSR market. “The market is undergoing tremendous changes with great opportunities in mortgage servicing,” said Bob Ryan, a special advisor at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, during last week’s Secondary Market Conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association. “It has attracted ...

The mortgage market’s shift from a focus on refinances to purchase mortgages won’t be enough to prompt an increase in purchase-mortgage originations in 2014, according to industry economists. The Mortgage Bankers Association revised its origination projections last week, predicting that purchase-mortgage originations will decline by 4.0 percent in 2014 compared with the previous year. An estimated $680 billion in purchase mortgages ... [Includes one data chart]

Reset issues in the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program will begin to surface in 2016 and worsen in later years, but the impact will be less severe than predicted, according to a new commentary by the Urban Institute. Analysts with the institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center said HAMP resets will be a challenge for many borrowers, particularly those who received the steepest interest rate reduction. “However, we are likely years away from ...

Mortgage credit tightened slightly in April, according to the latest Mortgage Credit Availability Index from the Mortgage Bankers Association, a measure which analyzes underwriting trends in data from the AllRegs Market Clarity product. The index slipped from 114.0 in March to 113.8 in April, after increasing for each of the first three months of the year. A decline in the MCAI indicates that lending standards are tightening, while increases in the index are indicative of a loosening ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are moving forward slowly on the common securitization platform even after the Federal Housing Finance Agency recently narrowed the project, according to an agency official. Bob Ryan, a special advisor to the FHFA, told attendees at last week’s Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary Market Conference that the development of a common GSE securitization platform would take several years. The Finance Agency’s 2014 strategic plan for the GSEs includes clarifying the scope of the CSP project, which has been in the works for over a year.