LoanSifter Inc. has announced the hiring of Mark Coupland as vice president of business development.Click to continue

MCT Trading Inc. (MCT) has announced that it has established an outsourced service, LockCentral, that implements and manages a centralized lock desk for mortgage bankers that offers them a viable alternative to operating an in-house lock desk. LockCentral saves time, ensures pricing accuracy, frees secondary marketing personnel to assume other responsibilities, and brings a number of new efficiencies to secondary marketing departments.Click to continue

The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged H&R Block subsidiary Option One Mortgage Corporation with misleading investors in several offerings of sub-prime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) by failing to disclose that its financial condition was significantly deteriorating. Option One, now known as Sand Canyon Corporation, agreed to pay $28.2 million to settle the SEC’s charges. The SEC alleges that Option One promised investors in more than $4 billion worth of RMBS offerings that it sponsored in early 2007 that it would repurchase or replace Click to continue

CoreLogic, a provider of information, analytics and business services, has announced that Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has approved it as a third-party due diligence provider for residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) rated by that agency. CoreLogic Due Diligence performs a full-range of diligence services for residential mortgages and small balance commercial loans, including forensic due diligence, non-performing loan reviews, acquisition and securitization reviews, data integrity reviews and quality control (QC).Click to continue

Ginnie Mae has announced that it guaranteed $29.23 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in March.  Issuance for Ginnie Mae II single-family pools led the way with more than $21.56 billion, while Ginnie Mae I single-family pools totaled more than $5.34 billion. Total single-family issuance for March was $27.78 billion. Issuance for Ginnie Mae Home Equity Conversion Mortgage-Backed Securities (HMBS) included in Ginnie Mae II single-family pools came in at $882 million. Ginnie Mae’s multifamily MBS issuance was more than $1.4 billion. Click to continue

According to a recent poll conducted by HousingPredictor.com, a large majority of consumers say they want the government-sponosred enterprises (GSEs), Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to halt buying mortgages. The opinion poll found that 72 percent of respondents want the GSEs to stop purchasing home loans from banks and mortgage lenders. Only 28 percent felt the GSEs should continue buying home loans.Click to continue

Stonegate Mortgage has announced that it is creating a Financial Institutions channel which will be a new strategic business unit within the company that will be solely focused on providing depository institutions with access to the secondary mortgage market on a correspondent and wholesale basis.Click to continue

Supply and demand is the most basic economic model for determining price in a market where demand is the amount of product or service that is desired and supply is the amount of product or service that is available. When either side falls out of balance, price is directly affected. This model has become more apparent than ever in today’s mortgage industry.Click to continue

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has announced the completion of the orderly wind down of its agency-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio, which it acquired as part of its response to the financial crisis. Overall, Treasury’s MBS portfolio generated a positive return of $25 billion for taxpayers. The Treasury invested $225 billion in MBS during 2008 and 2009 through authority provided to it by Congress under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA).Click to continue

Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco has also announced details on the new 2012 executive compensation programs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (see chart below). The 2012 pay program reduces top executive pay by nearly 75 percent since conservatorship, eliminates bonuses, and establishes a target for new CEO pay at $500,000. In setting this new compensation framework, FHFA concluded that further material reductions or uncertainty around compensation would heighten safety and soundness concerns.Click to continue