It’s no secret that home lenders are enjoying boom times. According to figures published by Inside Mortgage Finance last month, mortgage bankers funded a mouth-watering $700 billion in first-liens in the quarter, the strongest showing of the year.

Citadel Servicing Corp. ranks among the top 10 originators of non-QMs but to date, the privately held firm has never issued its own MBS...

By the time recap and release is completed, an army of securities attorneys and investment bankers are going to rack up the billable hours…

Although interest rate volatility played havoc for companies with unhedged servicing portfolios, a sharply growing refinance market provided a windfall of production income.

Guild Mortgage, the nation’s 20^th largest home lender (according to a ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance), is on track to originate a record $20 billion this year…

The Department of Justice declared: “A separation of powers problem with an agency does not compel invalidation of the agency’s actions if those actions are subsequently approved in compliance with separation of powers requirements.”

The Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loans backing the MSRs are top-heavy in Texas collateral at 46.8% of the total.

Based on third quarter figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, FHA lending accounts for 10.17% of the overall first-lien origination market.

KBW on Ocwen: “While the company is setting up MSR [mortgage servicing rights] financing facilities, management noted returns on available MSR trended down, though the company did lower its targeted ROE [return on equity] on agency MSR to 8.5% from 9.5%."

“In the first quarter everybody was hating life,” said Michael Lau, CEO of Pingora Asset Management. “Now everybody is loving life. They have fat margins and origination pipelines are robust.”