The agencies securitized just $35.46 billion of refinance loans during November, down 15 percent from the previous month, and refinances accounted for 44 percent of total issuance.

The strength of the non-agency jumbo market, at a time when securitization of these loans has slowed, suggests there is plenty of investor appetite for non-agency jumbos.

The Alt A origination estimate is based on the volume of first-lien conventional mortgages with interest rates ranging from 150 basis points over the prime mortgage rate to 300 bps over.

A rough measure of production profitability, the ratio of production income to origination volume, fell from 179 basis points in the second quarter to just 84 bps in the third. Back in the Wonderland of early 2012, this ratio was 203 bps.

During the first nine months of 2013, there were 512 different companies that sold mortgages to the government-sponsored enterprises that had been originated by loan correspondents of mortgage brokers. Some 324 of these lenders were involved in the broker-wholesale channel.

As a group, banks and thrifts reported net earnings of $4.76 billion on their mortgage-banking activity during the third quarter, a 42 percent drop from the second quarter.

According to an analysis from Inside MBS & ABS, barring a sudden, unexpected shift in strategy, the Fed by the end of this year will exceed the total MBS holdings of commercial banks and thrifts.

Mortgage brokers accounted for 9.6 percent of all loans originated in the the third quarter, one of the lowest readings ever, according to exclusive survey figures from Inside Mortgage Finance.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has directed the two GSEs to accelerate their portfolio trimming by focusing on “less-liquid” assets other than their own MBS.

The last time private MIs did more business than either the FHA or the VA was back in the first quarter of 2008. At that point, however, private MIs accounted for well over half of primary MI new business.