Publicly traded nonbank mortgage companies had widely varying results on their mortgage-banking operations during the second quarter as heavy losses reported by two firms pulled the group’s earnings underwater. Nine nonbanks reported a combined net loss of $339.5 million on mortgage-banking activity for the second quarter. That was actually an improvement over the $510.0 million the group lost in the first three months of the year. Nationstar ... [Includes one data chart]

With residential origination costs constantly rising, should rank-and-file loan officers worry that their jobs will eventually be automated away thanks to advances in technology? The thinking goes like this: Lenders are spending hundreds of million dollars a year in software upgrades to automate as many LO functions as they can. The ultimate goal is to reduce the number of loan officers and whittle down costs. Depending on where they work, mortgage loan officers can earn ...

While holders of mortgage servicing rights have taken large writedowns in recent quarters due to declines in interest rates, New Residential Investment has managed to report relatively large profits. New Residential had $68.65 million in net income attributable to common stockholders in the second quarter of 2016, down from $111.74 million the previous quarter and $75.12 million in the second quarter of 2015. New Residential held $1.36 billion in excess MSRs ...

Since the beginning of summer, at least eight mortgage-related merger and acquisition deals have come to light and more are on the way, according to an analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. To date, most of the activity has involved nonbank purchasers, with at least two of the acquirers – Home Point Financial and Caliber Home Loans – having private equity behind them. And of the eight, only one involves the sale of stock through a “franchise” transaction ...

Among the top 10 lenders in the second quarter of 2016, PennyMac Financial posted the largest increase to originations on a quarterly basis and compared with the second quarter of 2015, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. The lender plans to continue to grow, including launching a wholesale-broker operation in mid-2017 and putting an emphasis on consumer-direct production. PennyMac reported originations of $16.11 billion in the second quarter, up 47.9 percent ...

A handful of investors, including Caliber Home Loans, are kicking the tires at PHH Corp., taking a close look at the company’s mortgage assets and platforms, investment banking sources told Inside Mortgage Finance this week. At this point in time, a sale of the company through a stock transaction is highly unlikely, but the disposal of some of its key assets – in particular, its $231.74 billion servicing portfolio – could finally materialize before yearend. It’s...

Among three nonbank servicers that grew significantly after the financial crisis, Nationstar Mortgage has managed to continue to acquire mortgage servicing rights and subservicing while Walter Investment Management and Ocwen Financial have recently sold MSRs and taken huge losses. Officials at Nationstar said the nonbank is on track to board servicing with an unpaid principal balance of $130.0 billion between August and the end of the year. The new servicing includes acquisitions of MSRs and subservicing agreements. Nationstar handled a $369.0 billion servicing portfolio at June 30, down from $386.0 billion in servicing at the end of March. “I don’t think...

Fairway Independent Mortgage, Madison, WI, has been quietly giving control of the company away to a group of investors who are key to its growth: its own employees. The nation’s 22nd largest lender – as ranked by Inside Mortgage Finance – has been issuing stock to some of its senior executives since late last year, but recently rolled out an employee stock ownership plan to anyone, provided they work there for at least a year. For employees, the best part is...

Banks reported a drop in mortgage-banking income during the second quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports from 26 major public companies. But virtually all of the decline came from the four too-big-to-fail banks with over $1 trillion in assets, while regionals posted a substantial increase in mortgage-banking profits. As a group, the 26 banks earned $3.12 billion from mortgage banking during ... [Includes one data chart]

Officials at a number of lenders that have significantly increased their business in recent years point to efforts regarding corporate culture as a key factor in the companies’ success. Kurt Reisig, the founder of American Pacific Mortgage, a retail-only lender, said that since starting an effort to focus on corporate culture, APM has doubled its origination volume in the past two years and went from 800 employees to more than 2,000. “Culture eats strategy for lunch every day,” ...