Kate Berry

Small servicers that already operate on razor-thin margins would essentially be subject to many of the same requirements that came out of the $25 billion mortgage settlement struck early this year between regulators and the five largest bank servicers.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday shot down the idea of using eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages.

Fewer large banks are willing to purchase their loans, so the mortgage banks are throwing themselves into the arms of Ginnie Mae.

The FHA has embarked on a desperate attempt to raise capital through settlements with major banks, sales of severely delinquent loans and higher insurance premiums on new borrowers.

Mortgage refinancings once again drove banks' profits last quarter and, with interest rates at record lows, most industry experts expect the trend to continue at least through the end of the year.

Fannie Mae this week opened a mortgage help center in Ontario, Calif., and now operates a dozen centers nationwide that provide free education and counseling servicers to struggling homeowners.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has taken its first civil action, suing and effectively stopping business at a Los Angeles law firm that charged homeowners for loan modifications that allegedly never happened.

Chicago is the latest city to pass a resolution to hold hearings on whether to use eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages from private investors.

Several large and regional banks have disclosed what their capital ratios would look like if Basel III were in effect now and early results show that First Horizon National, Huntington Bancshares, SunTrust Banks and TCF Financial would take the biggest capital hits if they do not take steps to change their asset mix.

San Bernardino County's proposal to use eminent domain to seize, and then restructure, underwater private-label mortgages could hurt Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.

Three California local governments may use their eminent domain powers to seize mortgages and restructure them to help distressed borrowers stay in their homes, much to the dismay of investors who hold the mortgages.

Attorney Robert Maddox, who represents Ally Financial, calls the landmark foreclosure settlement earlier this year "a Trojan horse for the government to fix perceived problems in mortgage servicing" but others dispute the view that the punishment was too severe.

David H. Stevens, the president and chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, will remain at the trade group rather than departing to run SunTrust Mortgage, as he announced plans to do a month ago.

CitiMortgage has introduced a reduced mortgage payment program for qualifying servicemembers who have to permanently relocate and need immediate financial relief.

Six out of 10 homeowners who received a loan modification stopped paying their mortgage again after 18 months, but there may be a modest silver lining buried in the high recidivism rates.

As wards of the same federal conservator, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rarely diverge these days, but when they do it speaks volumes about where the two companies are headed.

Occupy protesters have vowed to return to an empty foreclosed home in south Minneapolis after holding two protests in the past month.

For the past two years, Valley National Bancorp in Wayne, N.J., has touted its $499 home refinance program in New Jersey and Pennsylvania—but there is fine print.

As head of the Mortgage Bankers Association, David H. Stevens spent the last year warning that excessive and ill-considered regulation could drag down the mortgage market. As the new head of SunTrust Mortgage, he'll have to face that regulation head-on.

Newly initiated foreclosures by the Federal Housing Administration jumped 247% in April from a year earlier, while the overall number of foreclosure starts fell 3.1% in the same period.