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Inside Mortgage Trends

February 18, 2011

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Mortgage Banking Less Profitable for Banks in 2010 Despite High Volume

Mortgage banking continued to be very profitable for most of the hundreds of banks involved in the industry in 2010, but earnings fell significantly from the previous year, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. Newly released call report data show...[Includes one data chart and one graph] Read More

Servicing Overhaul to Boost Competition

Federal agencies involved in an historic effort to rewrite the economics of mortgage servicing are partly motivated by an interest in expanding participation in a field that has become extraordinarily concentrated. The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have been meeting... Read More

Obama Reforms Could Increase Consolidation

Industry experts appear split on whether the Obama administration’s proposal to phase Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of the market will put smaller lenders at a competitive disadvantage or open up the field for new entrants. Bill Maloni, a former top lobbyist for Fannie Mae, said... Read More

Redwood Wants Bigger Jumbo Pool

Redwood Trust, the California real estate investment trust that created a buzz in the securitization industry last year by issuing a rare non-agency residential mortgage-backed security, did it again this week. The jumbo mortgage specialist said... Read More

Basel III Poses Challenge for MSRs

Securitization industry followers predict that the treatment of mortgage servicing rights under the final Basel III global capital rules represents both a quandary and an opportunity for financial services firms. Traditionally, banks have been able... Read More

More Firms Turn to Outsourcing

More mortgage lenders are expected to consider outsourcing some of their production activities as overall origination volume declines in 2011. Officials at Titan Lenders Corp., a company specializing in services related to closing/post-closing, back-office and review of warehouse lines, said... Read More

Pricing Engines: More Important Than Ever

As competition in the once-robust mortgage market grows tighter, mortgage bankers are getting to rely more on technology to price their loans quickly and accurately and sell them into the secondary mortgage market. Technology providers have been quietly promoting... Read More

Minority Borrowers Not to Blame for Crisis

Critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have for years charged that the government-sponsored enterprises’ affordable housing goals led them into overly risky lending, but a recent study concludes that the push to increase minority homeownership rates had no impact on the financial crisis. The new analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data by ComplianceTech found... Read More