Paul Muolo

It's no secret that there are signs of life in the "flow" servicing market, but will these green shoots of a revival turn brown?

MetLife Thursday afternoon said it will exit the reverse mortgage business — where it ranks among the top five producers — selling the division to Nationstar Mortgage of Texas.

The residential mortgage division of Ally Financial Inc. missed a scheduled payment on its debt Tuesday, laying the groundwork for an eventual default if the payment is not made up quickly.

Ally Financial on Friday told its mortgage banking clients that it will "significantly" curtail government lending tied to some government agencies, according to a internal memo. The affected agencies are the Federal Housing Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Agriculture.

U.S. Bank Home Mortgage table funded $8.1 billion of mortgages through loan brokers in the fourth quarter, displacing Provident Funding Associates as the nation's largest player in the channel, according new figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

Roughly 33 full-timers will lose their jobs when Ally Financial closes its MBS broker/dealer operation, according to a company spokeswoman.

A spokeswoman for Capital One, the owner of ING Direct, has confirmed that ING Mortgage has left the wholesale channel.

Until a few months ago, it was thought that 2012 might turn out to be a disaster year for loan production, one in which refinancings finally withered and home purchases continued to be anemic. But not anymore.

HSBC's residential lending and servicing business continues to be under what the bank calls a "strategic review," leaving its mortgage workers in limbo.

Wells Fargo has thrown down the gauntlet on the correspondent market, creating an "exclusionary list" of 88 firms that it will no longer buy loans from. How are lenders reacting so far? With a mixture of fear of being on the list and an indifferent "so what?"

With profit margins on HARP 2.0 refinancings sky high, Wells Fargo & Co., is putting caps on the loan-to-value ratio it will accept from third-party lenders, National Mortgage News has learned.

Dan Magder, a director of acquisitions for Lone Star Funds, has quit the investment firm to focus on what he calls an "REO-to-rental investment opportunity."

The correspondent lending arm of Wells Fargo this week began publishing a list of third-party originators that it will no longer buy loans from in the secondary market — as a way to address what it calls "risks" in loan origination.

Chimera Investment Corp., a publicly traded REIT that invests in MBS, said in a new SEC filing that it has fired its accounting firm, Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Mortgage bankers funded roughly $41 billion of jumbo loans in the fourth quarter, a 28% increase from the same period a year earlier, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

Industry veteran Luke Hayden, who took over as president of PHH Mortgage less than two years ago, resigned from the firm this week to pursue what the company calls "other interests." Also departing is company treasurer Mark Johnson.

Freddie Mac posted net "comprehensive" earnings $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter, but must turn around and pay the U.S. Treasury a $1.7 billion dividend, which means it ultimately lost money during the period.

Nationstar Mortgage and an affiliate company, Newcastle Investment Corp., have agreed to acquire roughly $63 billion in mortgage servicing rights from Aurora Bank FSB, a subsidiary of the bankrupt Lehman Bros.

Bank of America issued just $7.9 billion of GNMA-backed MBS in the fourth quarter, a 71% plunge from the same period in 2010, according to new figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

Fannie Mae saw its secondary market purchases fall by 20% in January while its cross town competitor, Freddie Mac, experienced a 10% gain, a sign that, perhaps, the Bank of America "problem" could be affecting the business of the two GSEs.