Paul Muolo

Daniel Mudd, the former Fannie Mae CEO who is the subject of a new, massive SEC fraud suit, announced Wednesday morning that he is taking a leave of absence from his current employer, Fortress Investment Group, New York.

PNC and Amex are said to be among the prospective buyers for part of the insurance company's home loan operations, but why they or others would pay up for something they could build on their own is unclear.

Although insurance giant MetLife Inc. is contemplating bids for its banking and mortgage divisions, the company's warehouse lending unit is nearing the $1 billion mark in terms of commitments.

Wholesale lenders table funded almost $33 billion of loans in the third quarter, giving the channel a 9.2% market share, according to new figures compiled by National Mortgage News and the Quarterly Data Report.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week hired Manoj K. Singh as principal examiner for risk, in charge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac late Tuesday afternoon released a somewhat detailed bulletin on the underwriting guidelines for refinancing underwater borrowers with GSE loans, segmenting what's allowable based on the loan-to-value (LTV) and if the product is being offered by the current servicer.

Fannie Mae Monday morning confirmed to National Mortgage News that its multifamily unit is the subject of an Inspector General probe being conducted by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Bank of America this week made the decision to exit retail lending in six low volume states: Alabama, Alaska, Montana, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

After several weeks of negotiations, Bank of America and Fortress Investments have ended talks over the bank selling its correspondent mortgage division to the publicly traded investment fund.

Consumers could save upwards of $63 billion a year if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac participate in a workable refinancing program for underwater borrowers, according to Moody's Investors Service.

Rock-bottom mortgage rates appear to be starting to pay off for Fannie Mae.

It appears that rock bottom mortgage rates have yet to cure the housing industry's woes.

Applications for new mortgages jumped 9.3% for the week that ended Sept. 23, a sign that ultralow rates are finally spurring new business activity.

The mortgage industry has seen this picture before: applications are flooding in at a pace not seen in several quarters, which means they need to staff up, but by how much?

It looks bad for fans of the higher loan limits for the government-sponsored enterprises, but that hasn't stopped housing, realty and mortgage trade groups from promoting the issue.

MountainView Capital Holdings in Denver, said one of its investment funds was the winning bidder on a $282 million pool of residential loans auctioned off by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

B of A spokesman Dan Frahm clarified late last week that the decision to stay in warehouse lending depends "to some extent on the interests of a potential buyer for our correspondent business.

Fannie Mae bought $39.4 billion of home mortgages from its seller-servicers in July, a 5% decline from the previous month. But compared with the same month a year ago the government-sponsored enterprise's acquisitions fell 26%.

Icon Residential, a lender in Irvine, Calif., recently pulled the plug on its plans to enter the correspondent lending channel, laying off roughly 120 full-time employees at the unit and at a related division.

Independent mortgage banking firms made an average profit of $575 per origination in the second quarter, a 66% gain from the first quarter — but a significant decline from two years ago when the average gain was $1,358.