“The recent decline in large-lender share of the primary market is temporary, and principally a result of cyclical factors that caused larger lenders to pull back from the market,” said Fannie Mae's Gerry Flood.

Freddie Mac reported new buyback demands on $3.3 billion of mortgages during the third quarter, a stunning 31 percent increase from the previous period.

Some 44 percent of mods on portfolio loans by eight large banks and thrifts include principal reduction in the third quarter of 2013.

Freedom Mortgage, which has aggressive hiring plans this year, has tapped two top production executives from PHH.

The GSEs’ common industry dataset that supports the CFPB’s new disclosure form is called the Uniform Closing Dataset, and is one component of the Uniform Mortgage Data Program, an ongoing effort being directed by the FHFA.

As an industry, banks assigned a fair-market value of $48.4 billion to their mortgage servicing rights, according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Trends.

Issuance of jumbo MBS was strong in 2013 until interest rates started to rise in May due to concerns that the Federal Reserve was set to taper its stimulus efforts.

A handful of firms say they are still aggressively recruiting residential loan officers who have a solid background in purchase-money lending – that is, sales professionals with deep ties to Realtors and home builders.

Also note that the ATR rule provides additional flexibility to small lenders in that the safe harbor has been expanded to 3.5 percent over the average prime offer rate.

Some 29.3 percent of home purchases completed in November relied solely on cash. That was the third monthly increase in the share of cash transactions.