At one shop based in the Midwest there’s unconfirmed talk of loan officers who haven’t been paid for months, unpaid leases and top executives who were on vacation as volumes collapsed.

Industry participants are divided on whether legislation under consideration in Congress to reform the government-sponsored enterprises will help encourage an increase in private capital in the mortgage market. In a speech this week, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was adamant that the GSE reform bill from Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID, will encourage non-agency investors to return to the mortgage market ...

It’s now or never for Congress to pass legislation to reform the government-sponsored enterprises, according to Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Industry analysts predict that Congress is highly unlikely to finish work on GSE reform this year, extending uncertainty in the mortgage market. The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is scheduled to markup GSE reform legislation next week ...

United Wholesale Mortgage is now offering jumbos on a wholesale basis with debt-to-income ratios as high as 49 percent allowed. The loans won’t receive protections for qualified mortgages as the DTI ratio limit for jumbo QMs is 43 percent. Loan amounts on United Wholesale’s Big & Easy Plus loan go up to $1.5 million. The lender said it will allow loan-to-value ratios on the mortgage of up to 75 percent while a borrower will need ... [Includes four briefs]

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said this week that housing finance reform can no longer be put off, but no more so than for the FHA which continues to play an “outsized role” in the mortgage market as private capital remains on the sidelines. Speaking in New York at an event co-hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, Donovan said the Obama administration is squarely behind the legislative proposal by Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID. “Despite its imperfections, does this bill represent progress? Absolutely,” said Donovan, seeking to win over housing advocacy groups disenchanted with the bill. “When looking for ways to improve [the bill], let’s not lose sight of its potential. Let’s not forget its importance to the housing market and its future.” The Johnson-Crapo legislative proposal calls for a wind-down of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and creation of a ...

Despite the ugliness of the first quarter, there are signs that loan production may finally be firming up.

Even in the depths of the financial crisis, the mortgage industry was producing more new loans than it did during the first quarter of 2014, according to new Inside Mortgage Finance estimates. Mortgage lenders generated just $235 billion of new home loans during the first three months of this year. That was down 23.0 percent from the fourth quarter’s estimated $305 billion in originations and it was off 58.0 percent from the first quarter of 2013. It was...[Includes one data chart]

Nonbank mortgage lenders accounted for a hefty 43.2 percent of single-family mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the first quarter of 2014, according to a new analysis of loan-level data by Inside Mortgage Finance. Nonbanks delivered $55.8 billion of home loans to the government-sponsored enterprises during the first three months of 2014. That was down 17.7 percent from the previous quarter, but overall GSE business was down even more, by 29.1 percent. Both subsets of the nonbank segment – larger companies that ranked among the top 25 lenders overall and smaller mortgage companies – claimed...[Includes one data chart]

Two large acquisitions of mortgage servicing rights have been put on hold by regulators at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Ginnie Mae, causing consternation in the secondary market. Moreover, according to trade group officials and advisors in the space, a deal needs to be struck between regulators and the industry that spells out the rules of the road when it comes to transferring MSRs from banks to their ultimate destination at nonbanks that are hungry for both product and market share. “We need an environment where servicing can be transferred...

In January, newly sworn-in FHFA Director Mel Watt officially delayed a GSE guaranty fee increase that had been scheduled by his predecessor Edward DeMarco.