One official described the situation: “Just more house cleaning now that Harold [Lewis] is gone. Most of the senior people leaving were his supporters.”

Compared to a year ago, bank mortgage servicing for others – nearly all of which is connected to MBS – was down 6.1 percent.

The regulator said Guarantee – which is in the process of liquidating – paid its LOs, in part, based on the interest rate of the loans they were bringing in.

They called on policymakers to “embrace” nonbanks and address unintended regulatory impacts that are seen as driving banks out of portions of the mortgage market.

Though down from April, it was still significantly higher than at any time in 2014, when production averaged just $77.46 billion per month.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority started publishing pricing data for a broad range of ABS this week in an effort to increase transparency. Industry participants suggest that the new disclosures will prompt a decrease in trading and have some impact on pricing. The ABS pricing details are available through the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine and include deals issued as 144A private placements. “The dissemination of transaction information in ABS is...

With interest rates rising again, the future looks somewhat cloudy for real estate investment trusts that invest in MBS, a situation that investors have grown accustomed to the past few years. According to figures compiled by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, the 28 mortgage investing REITs tracked by the firm had a combined market capitalization rate of $47.8 billion at the end of May, a slight drop from a year ago when the tally was $49.0 billion. Then again, not all of the 28 are...

An increase in mortgage origination volume helped lenders increase earnings from loan production and secondary market activities during the first quarter of 2015, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. A diverse group of large and mid-sized companies reported a total of $1.910 billion in net earnings from their loan origination and marketing activities during the first three months of the year. That was up 20.1 percent from the ... [Includes two data charts]

Commercial banks and thrifts – most of them – continued their years-long retreat from the mortgage servicing rights market during the first quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call reports. Banks serviced a total of $4.282 trillion of home mortgages for other investors as of the end of March. That was down $134.2 billion, or 3.0 percent, from the fourth quarter. Compared to a year ago, bank mortgage servicing ... [Includes one data chart]

Small and mid-sized independent mortgage bankers have key decisions to make about secondary market strategies and what to do with the mortgage servicing rights they create through originations, and experts say there isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy. In secondary marketing, lenders that have become Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac approved sellers typically start out at the cash window, said Philip Rasori, chief operations officer at Mortgage Capital Trading ...