The MBS gain was lopsided: Ginnie MBS issuance jumped 10.8 percent from September to October, while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suffered declines.

The nonbank expansion has eased over the past few quarters because once-hungry buyers of receivables such as Ocwen, Nationstar and Walter Investment are no longer gobbling up huge portfolios.

The biggest chunk of GSE business comes from mortgages with high credit scores and LTV ratios below 80 percent.

If housing markets are stronger than expected and rates stay low enough, originations could hit $1.421 trillion next year.

Non-agency issuers produced $32.16 billion of new commercial MBS, a 40 percent increase from the second quarter.

Wells Fargo's origination market share keeps dropping, but is still more than double that of its closest competitor, JPMorgan Chase.

David Steckel of Bank of America said his institution has focused on capturing more of the customers who fit into the company’s credit box rather than making that box bigger.

It’s not clear whether the rest of the industry will push the third-quarter origination results higher.

Buyers of “bulk” Ginnie mortgage servicing rights will have to meet the test by January 2015.

In fact, nearly a fifth of the repurchases involved loans sold to the GSEs by Lehman Brothers or its related mortgage businesses.