Origination

The 2013 national bank failure tally ran up to eight this weekend as three more institutions fell by the wayside. FDIC announced the collapses of Chipola Community Bank in Marianna, Florida; Heritage Bank of North Florida in Orange Park; and First Federal Bank in Lexington, Kentucky.

As part of its ongoing efforts to assist the industry in the implementation of new mortgage guidelines, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued proposed amendments to clarify the qualified mortgage (QM) and servicing rules first laid out in January. The proposal addresses five topics, including debt-to-income ratio concerns surrounding the Ability to Repay Rule, uncertainties around the temporary QM provision, and which criteria are used to define "small servicers."

In Pittsburgh, ServiceLink, an end-to-end origination, servicing, and default solutions provider for mortgage lenders and servicers, named Mike Zwerner as SVP of corporate development.

Despite some obstacles in the homebuilding recovery and three consecutive monthly declines in the National Association of Home Builder's homebuilder confidence index, Capital Economics remains largely optimistic about the homebuilding rebound. The analytics firm is sticking with its previous prediction that housing starts will reach about 1 million this year and 1.3 million next year as rising home prices help to mitigate increases in construction costs.

Users of DataQuick's National Property Database will now be able to search through four customized databases to more accurately identify business prospects.

Carrington Technology Solutions, LLC and Equator Business Solutions announced the commercial availability of RentPointe, Carrington's proprietary software application designed to meet the complexities of managing diverse portfolios of single-family rental properties.

Apartment markets improved in April in all categories, according to the National Multi Housing Council's (NMHC) April Quarterly Survey of Apartment Market Conditions. All four of the survey's indexes--Market Tightness, Sales Volume, Equity Financing, and Debt Financing--came in above 50, which marks the point between improving and deteriorating conditions. April's gains reverse findings made in January, when Market Tightness and Sales Volume dropped below 50 for the first time since 2010.

Construction employment proved to be the silver lining in March's otherwise dismal job report, Freddie Mac says in its economic and housing outlook for April.

In San Diego, Mortgage Capital Management (MCM) announced it is now offering an automated report system designed to track and report loan processing times to help banks identify their highest performing entities.

Commercial and multifamily originations rose 33 percent to $244.2 billion in 2012, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).