Residential loan sales by banks totaled $151.79 billion in the second quarter, down 7.3 percent from the previous period.

MUFG Union Bank was the top wholesale lender in the jumbo market by a wide margin.

FHFA Director Mel Watt is concerned about zero capital, but has not yet given any public indication he will do something about it...

All of the uptick in seller buybacks came from Fannie, where repurchases surged 21.5 percent from the first to the second quarter.

Angel Oak expects that production by its wholesale arm will grow by 62.8 percent this year.

In general, 2017 is turning out to be a better year than many originators expected...

A new report from the House Financial Services Committee staff accuses CFPB Director Richard Cordray of misleading Congress about the bureau’s probe of the unauthorized account creation scandal at Wells Fargo, rushing into a settlement without doing the requisite leg work, and agreeing to a paltry settlement when he could have slammed the company for at least $10 billion in fines. As a part of its investigation into the Wells Fargo fraudulent account scandal, the committee said it has obtained a crucial new document – the “Recommendation Memorandum” – that was presented to and approved by Cordray.“The Memorandum shows that the CFPB estimated that the bank was potentially liable for a statutory monetary penalty exceeding $10 billion,” said the committee. “This ...

Mortgage lenders that sell loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a modest increase in the volume of loans they repurchased from the GSEs during the second quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis of disclosure reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During the second quarter, lenders repurchased or made indemnifications on $244.44 million of single-family loans pooled in Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities. That was up 2.5 percent from the first three months of the year. On a year-to-date basis, seller buybacks totaled $483.01 million, a 14.5 percent drop from the first six months of 2016.

Fifteen industry trade groups and other organizations sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and GSE regulator Mel Watt late this week, reminding them that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be reformed through legislation and not some type of recapitalization plan where Congress is cut from the equation.“We are increasingly concerned about efforts to derail comprehensive reform,” they write. “We urge both Treasury and Federal Housing Finance Agency to focus on continuing to work with Congress to end conservatorship through comprehensive, bipartisan, legislative reforms.” No specifics are provided regarding the derailment comment. Presently, there are no viable bills before Congress where a consensus on GSE reform might be reached.

Despite reports showing that many homeowners lack required flood insurance policies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said data show that most of their loans do have the appropriate coverage. Recent hurricanes in Houston and Florida revealed that borrowers either never had coverage or let their policies lapse. Flood insurance is a requirement for GSE loans in designated flood areas and the mortgage giants say that servicers are responsible for enforcing the policies. Nevertheless, getting to the root of the disconnect is complicated. Although the GSEs said it’s up to servicers to evaluate whether loans meet flood insurance requirements, they said they also have their own systems in place to help ensure compliance.