In a business dominated by a handful of super-sized national lenders and production volume in a nosedive, lenders have to pay more attention to how they compete for the dwindling pool of potential borrowers. Spending more time on acquiring industry knowledge and reaching out to customers will pump up originators' performance, according to a recent report released by Mortgage Source Success, a client acquisition and retention solution provider. "In less than a decade, mortgage loan origination in the U.S. has been turned on its head," the report said. "Not only has the economic crisis severely reduced the number and dollar-volume of originations, but...

The so-called RMBS 2.0 features squeaky-clean collateral and high-definition transparency, but industry experts say, more importantly, that after years of mostly talk there is now some momentum in the market. Adam Yarnold, a managing director at Barclays Capital, said there are half a dozen residential mortgage conduits – including his firm – that are buying loans. During a panel session at the secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association, he noted that more broker/dealers are in the wings. Barclays is buying high-quality loans with loan-to-value ratios below 70 percent and debt-to-income ratios that come close to the standards proposed by federal regulators for qualified residential mortgages, Yarnold said. The company hosts a web-based portal through which it locks loans and...

A number of the top mortgage lending financial institutions are finding increasing success in reaching potential homebuyers via their Internet websites, but they’re not satisfied there. Some are stepping up...