Investors accounted for 20 percent of home purchases in May, based on the three-month moving average, the third consecutive decline in investor share.

Wall Street is concerned that the further away a loan is from getting safe harbor protection as a qualified mortgage, the more legal uncertainty and higher costs there will be associated with it.

Freddie Mac's "low activity fee" will be mostly eliminated. However, it will still apply to originators that have not sold a loan to the GSE in 36 months.

When rates spiked this week, margin calls to MBS investors increased. Lenders are nervous but next will will be the real test, mortgage executives told Inside Mortgage Finance.

Banks and thrifts continued to push a high volume of home mortgages into the secondary market during the first three months of 2013, but the pace was slowing, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call report data. The industry reported $395.8 billion in single-family mortgage sales during the first quarter, down 5.1 percent from the previous period. It was a stronger sales volume than during the first quarter of 2012, however, and ranked as the fourth largest ... [Includes one data chart]

Although Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are reviewing recently originated mortgages more closely than they have in the past, the bulk of the whopping $13.21 billion in mortgage repurchases reported by the two government-sponsored enterprises during the first quarter came from loans originated years ago. A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of repurchase activity reported by the two GSEs in Securities and Exchange Commission filings shows that 80.0 percent of the buybacks recorded in ... [Includes two data charts]

In late May, in the time span of about 10 days, Bexil American Mortgage of San Diego saw its founder and national sales manager depart – not a good sign for a relatively young company that has been originating loans for less than two years. About a week after the news broke about the two men, the parent company reported a $7.1 million loss for the year. John Robbins, the founder and CEO of Bexil American Mortgage, told Inside Mortgage Trends that, “When you have a major shareholder disagree with ...

Residential debt outstanding fell slightly in the first quarter, but the GSE/FHA share of the market continued to grow.

The pool of mortgages in Shellpoint's first deal has a combined loan-to-value ratio of 65 percent, slightly lower than other recent non-agency MBS.

When rates rise, loan officers begin to bite their nails, unless they are heavily reliant on purchase-money loans.