The SEC will push for admissions of guilt as part of settlements of lawsuits it files against private industry, including participants in the MBS market.

It appears that Cerberus is going down the mortgage aisle one more time. Let's hope it doesn't end like GMAC. Meanwhile, jumbo MBS market seizes up, temporarily.

Over the past two weeks, mortgage lenders have seen their application volumes and origination pipelines get whipsawed by rising interest rates. But it’s not the run-up in rates, per se, that set off alarm bells in the industry. It’s how fast rates climbed. As Inside Mortgage Finance went to press this week, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury was at roughly 2.60 percent. On a historical basis, that’s an attractive rate – and as many lenders have pointed out: consumers can still obtain a 30-year fixed-rate conventional loan at 4 percent, depending on the points paid. But a month ago, the 10-year Treasury was...

Mortgage bankers continue to talk about declining refi applications but purchase money firms remain mostly optimistic about their prospects.

Implementation of state-specific servicing standards like California’s would impose "divergent and conflicting standards" that will add costs to future home buyers and create confusion, said one MBA official.

Stan Middleman, founder and CEO of Freedom Mortgage, will buy $20 million worth of stock in the new REIT, which (of course) has ties to Freedom.

Rep. Watt’s slightly more than two-pages of prepared testimony was long on biographical detail but lacking on mortgage-finance specifics.

The secondary market for residential servicing rights remains robust.

JPM is losing certain staffers to Freedom Mortgage. Meanwhile, is Art Ringwald contemplating a return to mortgage banking?

The revised ranking for the first quarter shows that the top retail lender, Wells Fargo, produced $60.4 billion through this channel, or 12 percent of total originations for the period.