Inside MBS & ABS found big gains in the securitization of most commercial property types, including a huge surge in mortgages on hotels and motels.

At the end of the year, banks and thrifts serviced $5.323 trillion of home mortgages for other investors, giving these MSRs an asset value of $41.43 billion.

Mortgage banking units owned by banks and thrifts generated $1.55 trillion in loan sales during 2012, a 36.9 percent jump from the previous year.

Not only was the jumbo market on a roll last year but the GSEs were major players, according to new figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance.

If a plaintiff gets its way, Nationstar will be blocked from auctioning off delinquent loans from MBS pools.

The purchase mortgage business has been in the tank since the housing crash. Although home buying is on the upswing, will it be enough to replace the refi boom?

The mortgage operations of banks and thrifts posted record earnings in 2012, but the momentum may be behind the sector.

Wells Fargo last year wound up keeping almost $20 billion of new residential production its books instead of selling the loans to Fannie Mare and Freddie Mac.

Heavy refinance activity, especially through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, boosted the conventional conforming market by a whopping 35 percent in 2012.

The GSEs continued to wrangle with seller/servicers over repurchase requests during the fourth quarter of 2012, but mostly over loans originated five years earlier.