Origination

The health of the labor market has a far-reaching impact on many areas of housing. When the economy is growing and the number of employed rises, so do home sales and mortgage originations. According to the research firm Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, there's also a definitive link between employment and home prices. The firm's analysts examined metro area job data juxtaposed with price trends for new homes, and their conclusions illustrate that jobs and housing "are joined at the hip."

More hard times may be in store for brokers in the loan origination sector, which the Federal Reserve's new compensation rules already shrank by causing a wholesale market pullback in April, according to Barclays Capital. A weekly economic forecast by the firm offered a section entitled "Bye, bye broker" that predicts a flight by brokers to high-balance loans over the next several years. The analysts note that the barred yield-spread premiums (YSP) provided brokers with as much as 90 percent of their compensation in the past.

Mortgage lenders across the country have reported layoffs and substantial downsizing, a consequence of heightened regulatory scrutiny, weak job growth, and brittle markets slumbering in the wake of diminishing consumer confidence. Despite a small spurt in refinancing measures and a drop in lending rates to their lowest ebb since the turn of the century, origination loan volume remains low, and lenders are coming to terms with the fact that they will be financing fewer mortgages over a longer-than-expected period.

On Monday the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released a statement announcing the nomination of E.J. Burke, a senior executive and director at KeyBank Real Estate Capital and Corporate Banking Services, as its vice-chair. Burke has more than three decades of experience in the mortgage banking business, At KeyBank, he also served as head of real estate capital markets, presiding over its commercial mortgage division as managing director.

The Federal Reserve is raising the dollar amount of mortgage fees that triggers additional disclosure requirements under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA). On Monday, the central bank's board of governors published its annual adjustment to the rule, bumping the amount of the fee-based trigger up 3 percent to $611, effective January 1, 2012. Currently that threshold is set at $592.

PSM Holdings, Inc. has agreed to merge its mortgage banking arm with Oklahoma's Brookside Mortgage, LLC, forming a new entity that the parent company will manage under a wholly owned subsidiary. The merger serves as the next step in a broader expansion strategy by PSM Holdings, which it began in 2010 by acquiring another Oklahoma-based mortgage banking company, CBB, Inc., and continued by acquiring UCMC in February this year.

Elizabeth Warren has hit another hurdle on the path to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director, after a string of news reports revealed the administration is considering a former banker for the role. The buzz is that President Barack Obama and his advisers have begun to openly float Raj Date as a replacement nominee to fill the top position at the bureau. Date currently serves as a deputy under Warren and has ties to Capital One Financial and Deutsche Bank.

The top three U.S. banking regulators have issued guidelines that would require comprehensive stress tests every year for lending institutions with assets totaling $10 billion or more. The Federal Reserve, FDIC, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed guidance material that would test a bank's capital preparedness and lending ability under national economic duress. The evaluation would also appraise the integrity of the banks' payout plans for shareholders.

The Department of Treasury and HUD jointly released the Housing Scorecard for May on Thursday, finding that housing markets remain fragile with a seven-month stretch of declining home prices. The scorecard tracks monthly housing and economic data. The May edition called housing prices weak, noting only a minor boost for sales in April. Other industry reports echo the assessment with mortgage applications still falling, eroding home equity, and weak job growth -- all impacting the mortgage market.

Surveys released by Bankrate and Freddie Mac on Thursday confirm a continuing slide in fixed and adjustable mortgage rates, with analysts attributing the declines to news about weak job growth. Figures in Freddie Mac's report trended alongside those in Bankrate's weekly survey to reveal a decline for 30-year fixed-rate averages to 4.49 percent and 4.65 percent, respectively. Bankrate says its findings reflect a straight nine-week fall for mortgage rates, made more unstable by restive housing markets and long-term government debt.