One last thought on Mel Watt, FHFA and expanding the credit box: Members of the GOP who were big boosters of the recently departed Ed DeMarco will probably read the g-fee comment notice and have a fit…

“We have a lot of plans,” Newman told IMFnews. “We plan to be in originations, servicing, capital markets and multi-channel production.”

Fairholme still owns a ton of GSE stock. At press time Wednesday, Fannie common was trading at $4.77. The most Fairholme ever paid for Fannie common was $2.07. Sweet…

Zach Oppenheimer, a senior vice president at Fannie Mae, said it’s a positive development that more private capital is coming into the mortgage servicing space.

Sources contend that at least two nonbanks have undertaken due diligence of PHH Mortgage, but so far a deal has been elusive.

A new poll on the Inside Mortgage Finance website tells the story: Just 24 percent of respondents want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taken out to the Jersey Meadowlands by Luca Brasi. (Leave the gun, take the cannolis.)

It’s a buyer’s market for mortgage firms these days, and former Cole Taylor Mortgage Chief Executive Willie Newman couldn’t be in a better place: He’s teamed up with Stone Point Capital, a hedge fund that has committed several hundred million dollars to the purchase of residential lenders. “We have a lot of plans,” Newman told Inside Mortgage Finance. “We plan to be in originations, servicing, capital markets and multi-channel production.” It was...

Former employees of the firm told IMFnews that they are perplexed as to why the company’s owners did not file a bankruptcy filing in federal court.

The price quotes can vary greatly depending on the size of the company being targeted, especially if there’s a servicing portfolio and platform that needs to be looked at.

Here’s what the current state of mortgage banking boils down to: Can the industry survive on $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion in production a year through 2015?