Paul Rozo, who runs PRMG, told us that he is not a big fan of call centers and that every LO in his organization is a “hunter,” a sales person “who relies on referral business and/or handling their own marketing."

Buyback resolutions declined by 28 percent from the second quarter, even as the government-sponsored enterprises wrapped up large-scale settlements with a handful of their largest sellers.

In its successful civil suit against Bank of America, DOJ estimated that the two GSEs lost $850 million from thousands of loans acquired through Countrywide's “Hustle” program.

PennyMac is showing that it's hungry for mortgage servicing deals.

According to Alice Alvey of Indecomm Mortgage U, “many shops are reassessing originator comp plans for January 2014 to adjust to the changing margins and seize the opportunity to blame it on the change in the law."

Further declines in refinance activity and some softening in home-purchase lending pushed agency single-family MBS production down to just $93.57 billion in October, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. October was the first month since September 2011 that agency MBS issuance fell below the $100 billion mark. Production last month was down 12.3 percent from September, and it represented the sixth consecutive monthly decline. There was...[Includes two data charts]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has picked two “final” candidates to be CEO of the joint venture developing a common securitization platform for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and, potentially, some non-agency MBS issuers. According to industry officials close to the matter, Peter Carroll is one of the candidates to head Common Securitization Solutions, the name of the entity developing the platform. Carroll is currently the assistant director for mortgage markets at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The identity of the other candidate could not be confirmed...

It does not appear to be a matter of whether a Senate housing finance reform bill will include an affordable-housing component but rather how to structure one that gets both Democrats and Republicans behind it. During a hearing this week, Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, said that an affordable housing component is “imperative” to any reform legislation that he and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID, move through committee. “Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s mission is...

There was no surprise about why. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized a total of $41.71 billion of refinance loans in October, down 22 percent from the previous month.

The bipartisan Senate blueprint for secondary mortgage market reform includes several key provisions designed to facilitate small-lender access when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no longer around.