Paul Muolo

After months of rumors, Bank of America made it official Wednesday morning, saying it would exit the correspondent mortgage space, where it ranks second nationwide.

Mortgage Banking Solutions of Woodway, Texas, says it is working on four merger-related deals with announcements on two of them coming shortly.

Not only are residential loan applications booming, but nonbank lenders increasingly are tapping their warehouse providers for additional credit.

Freddie Mac purchased $21.7 billion of mortgages from its seller/servicers in July, its worst acquisition month of the year and only about half of what it bought in January.

Sales of homes that were in some stage of foreclosure or repossessed accounted for 31% of home sales in the second quarter, a slight decline from the first quarter, according to figures released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc.

New home sales in July came in at a slight decline from the prior month, a sign that ultra low mortgage rates are still not moving sales off their Depression levels.

The national delinquency rate on outstanding home mortgages ticked up to 8.44% in the second quarter of 2011, which means roughly $793.4 billion of residential loans are 30 days or more past due.

Citigroup on Tuesday afternoon said that it recently hired Mark Danahy to head its residential origination division, which ranks among the top five in the nation.

Annaly Capital Management posted second-quarter net earnings of $120.8 million, compared with a loss of $218.2 million a year earlier.

MBA's chief economist notes that refi applications have not been terrific of late and is unsure whether the latest drop in rates will spur much new business.

The 'on-again/off-again' sale process has started once again for Aurora Loan Services, the Colorado-based mortgage banking division of Aurora Bank FSB, according to industry officials.

Bank of America over the past 10 days tried – and failed – to sell roughly $50 billion of 'legacy' mortgage servicing rights, according to servicing advisors familiar with the auction.

Mortgage technology and service provider Lender Processing Services earned $21.4 million in the second quarter, a 73% decline from the same period a year earlier, citing restructuring charges and lower revenue.

Total Mortgage Services, a nonbank mortgage lender based in Milford, Conn., on Monday said it plans to hire 50 new loan officers as it expands its retail presence in the U.S.

Foreclosure-related filings fell by almost 30% in the first half, to 1.17 million actions, but it appears much of the drop is attributable to processing and procedural delays, according to figures compiled by RealtyTrac.

Todd Chamberlain, a 25-year veteran of the mortgage industry and the head of residential lending at Regions Financial, left the company last week to take a job with a competitor.

Although residential lenders are starting to ponder cutbacks in their ranks, not all mortgagerelated firms are worried about their head counts.

Mortgage-related employment rose slightly in May, with residential companies adding 2,600 new jobs. However, the mortgage broker segment continued to suffer job losses: 1,600 workers left the business, some voluntarily and some not.

Private National Mortgage Acceptance Corp. plans to make a big splash in warehouse lending and late last week unveiled the leader of the effort: Paul Szymanski, once a top warehouse executive at the No. 1 player in that niche, Bank of America.

Warehouse credit for nonbank borrowers is probably the most plentiful it's been since the financial markets crashed three years ago, as banks large and small have waded into the sector.