Employers nationwide added 257,000 new jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said Friday. Economists projected a payroll increase of 230,000.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported Thursday that its Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI), which analyzes data from AllRegs' Market Clarity, increased 1.8 percent to 117.8 last month. All of the component indices measured by MBA increased month-over-month, with the gauge of conventional loan availability climbing 3 percent and the government index rising 0.9 percent.

The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) slipped 7 basis points in the last week, settling at 3.59 percent (0.7 point) for the week ending February 5, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. "Mortgage rates fell this week following the release of weaker than expected pending home sales, which fell 3.7 percent in December," said Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist for Freddie Mac.

Mortgage Machine Services (MMS), an enterprise lending solutions provider based in North Texas, will begin offering the source code to its flagship loan origination system (LOS) to the entire mortgage industry, the company said in an announcement.

In a note to stakeholders released Thursday, Faris reviewed a handful of the regulatory hurdles Ocwen has had to deal with in the past year, including a long-running investigation from New York's top financial regulator that eventually resulted in a $150 million settlement.

In Denver, Titan Lenders Corp., a firm specializing in mortgage services, is headed into 2015 strong after closing the book on one of its best years yet, according to an announcement.

In a meeting with reporters on Wednesday, Mel Watt, former U.S. representative and chief of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) since December 2013, discussed a number of key issues facing the GSEs and the agency, touching on topics ranging from recently introduced low down payment programs to the often debated subject of principal reduction for struggling homeowners.

LenderLive Network, a national mortgage services provider headquartered in Colorado, introduced on Tuesday the two newest regional account executives for its Correspondent Lending division: Andrew Lion and Wendy Lovett.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said Wednesday that mortgage loan applications rose a seasonally adjusted 1.3 percent for the week ending January 30. It was the third increase of the month, following a minor holiday-adjusted drop the previous week.

Based on an analysis of loan applications passing through its own fraud detection technology, Interthinx said Tuesday that its national Mortgage Fraud Risk Index measured 98 in Q3 2014, down 2 percent from the quarter prior and 9 percent from the year-ago period.