Survey Question

Is it morally wrong for underwater borrowers to renege on their mortgages and walk away from houses (and loans) they can still afford but are worth less than what they owe?

Most Popular Stories

These were the past week's most frequently emailed stories on our site:

1. HMDA Data Show Minority Share of Mortgages Plummeting
2. No Hamp for You? Fannie Offers Hand to Investors
3. Banks Are Suing Realtors Over Foreclosed Properties
4. Lots of Prison Time Possible for 41 Charged with Bad Deeds
5. Biggest Financial Firms Will Be Hurt by Capmark Bankruptcy

Quote of the Week

Given the lack of a private secondary mortgage market, FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are pretty much the only game in town.

Robert Story, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

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Assistance Limited for HFAs

By Peter Schroeder

Treasury Department officials are warning state and local housing finance agencies that the Obama administration's recently unveiled temporary bond purchase program is oversubscribed and that agencies will likely receive less assistance than they requested as a result.

The officials issued the warning late last week and asked the HFAs to identify their peak years of issuance from 2004 to 2008 for both single-family and multifamily issues to help determine how much they should receive under the relief program.

The scale-back comes after Michael Barr, Treasury assistant secretary for financial institutions, last month declined to put a dollar amount on the program and instead told reporters it would be sized to "meet demand."

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Even though residential originations swelled in the third quarter, the mortgage banking and brokerage sectors continued to shed jobs in September, according to new government figures.

Treasury Says No to Goldman Buying Tax Credits from Fannie

The Treasury Department has turned down Fannie Mae's request to sell roughly $2.6 billion in low-income housing tax credits to Goldman Sachs.

Residential servicers, a sector that is grappling with a potential tidal wave of loan modifications, are beginning to hire "like crazy" according to Mary Coffin, a senior servicing executive with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

With the nation's unemployment rate busting through the 10% mark in October, President Obama on Friday signed legislation extending the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit and giving additional tax breaks to certain homeowners trading up.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, a mortgage vulture fund created by a former Countrywide executive to profit from the mortgage crisis, posted a $730,000 loss for the period ending Sept. 30.

Driven by charges and adjustment expenses in its domestic mortgage insurance business, The PMI Group Inc., Walnut Creek, Calif., posted a net loss of $93 million for the third quarter, a marked improvement over the same period last year when it lost $229 million.

Freddie Losses Driven by Credit Issues

Freddie Mac had credit-related expenses of $7.5 billion for the third quarter, which was the leading driver of its $6.3 billion net loss to common stockholders.

Fannie Mae posted yet another stunning loss in the third quarter, $18.8 billion, noting that it now owns or guarantees close to $200 billion in nonperforming assets.

Ohio's attorney general is suing American Home Mortgage Servicing — a business controlled by vulture fund investor Wilbur Ross — accusing the company of what the state calls "incompetent and inadequate customer service."

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's Mortgagee Review Board is imposing civil money penalties totaling $27,000 on two Federal Housing Administration-approved lenders in Wisconsin and Connecticut for a variety of violations of FHA lending and marketing standards.

Fannie Mae has rolled out a new program under which it will offer market-rate leases for terms of up to a year to troubled borrowers who turn over the deeds to their homes.

Apartment Investment & Management Co. has decided to focus on reducing refunding risk by accelerating refinancing of property loans maturing prior to 2012, based on the results of its recently released third-quarter activity.

Edward William Farley, a former mortgage broker from Georgia, pleaded guilty in federal district court to charges stemming from a mortgage fraud scheme and a related real estate investment Ponzi scam involving more than 150 victims.