News

McLean Mortgage Corporation, a full-service mortgage lender headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, announced the release of a new program designed to help prospective homebuyers and Realtors in a market characterized by low inventory and increased competition from cash bidders.

Walter Investment Management Corp. announced Tuesday that its wholly owned subsidiary, Reverse Mortgage Solutions, Inc. (RMS), has acquired a reverse mortgage servicing portfolio containing more than 76,000 loans from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. The portfolio has an unpaid principal balance of about $12.2 billion and is expected to transfer to RMS during the third quarter of 2013, Walter Investment said in a release. The transaction will double the size of Walter Investment's serviced book, according to CEO and chairman Mark J. O'Brien.

Even as prices continued to rise in last year's fourth quarter, American homeowners found themselves paying less in monthly mortgage payments compared to pre-bubble norms.

While the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) estimates about $482 billion of originations in Q1, FBR--citing comments from industry contacts--believes first-quarter volume to be closer to $400 billion, a drop of nearly 25 percent from the $525 billion of originations in Q4 2012. Though the year may have started slow, the investment banking advisory firm attributes the drop-off in activity to seasonal slowdown and forecasts growth throughout 2013 as low rates and government expansion efforts keep up interest in refinances.

The ongoing housing recovery bodes well for the future of commercial real estate (CRE), TD Economics (an affiliate of TD Bank) says in a recent report.

Prudential Real Estate released Tuesday the results of its first-quarter Consumer Outlook Survey, revealing Americans' sentiment toward real estate is growing more and more favorable.

Lenders are more bullish on the housing recovery now than they have been in the last several years, according to FICO's quarterly survey of bank risk professionals.

Chicago-based Guaranteed Rate announced the hiring of seasoned mortgage industry vet Tom Gamache as national director of retail production. Gamache brings more than two and a half decades of industry experience to Guaranteed Rate, recently serving in executive sales positions at MetLife Home Loans and Bank of America, where he led his sales team to exceed quarterly and annual production goals.

Fiserv, Inc., announced that its Common Origination Platform and LoanServ solutions have been integrated to provide real-time, full-circle loan boarding processes for all mortgage loans.

Class Appraisal, Inc. appointed a former mortgage banking executive to manage sales in the middle market. Tim Perkins was selected to lead the company as a consultant and business developer. Over the years, Perkins has held key positions with large mortgage banking companies such as Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.