Fannie and Freddie: They keep earning money but in the eyes of the FHFA, large risks still remain.

Spot loans are currently prohibited, but the agency is said to be reevaluating the product because of reports of first-time homebuyers having difficulty in obtaining FHA financing for condo unit purchases and seniors seeking reverse mortgages to tap the equity in their units.

Can James Furash, another former top Countrywide executive, pull a Stan Kurland, and turn AmeriHome into a mortgage juggernaut?

Specifically, the mortgages will be above the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loan limit of $625,500. But before Redwood can buy its first jumbo loan, the Federal Housing Finance Agency must sign off on the effort.

“DOJ may not have the evidence to try this as a fraud case,” Judge Max Cogburn said.

It was also the lowest three-month volume since the fourth quarter of 2008, not long after dramatically higher “emergency” loan limits were put in place by the agencies.

Correspondent sellers fret that some of the largest players might shut the door on them for a different reason: they can’t deliver enough volume in an origination-challenged market.

It’s far too early to draw definitive conclusions about the success of the QM rule and its overall effect upon the market.

The “legacy” bulk market for MSRs has been spooked, to some degree, by regulatory scrutiny, though offerings of newly originated product have been plentiful.

Waiting for a large merger or acquisition to happen in the mortgage market is a bit like waiting for Godot: there’s plenty of talk about his arrival, but he may never show. “Right now there’s a large discrepancy between what the buyer wants to pay and what the seller wants to sell at,” said Chuck Klein, managing partner in Mortgage Banking Solutions, Austin, TX. “Any company that’s making money will not sell at just book value.” One large company that likely will not be sold this year is...