Kate Berry

The Mortgage Bankers Association continues to push back against regulations stemming from the financial crisis, as the industry's biggest lobbying group continues pushing for regulatory relief to bolster the housing market — and boost profits for its members.

Lenders desperately want to make potentially lucrative home loans to those with less-than-stellar credit, but only a few are willing to try given legal uncertainties. Here's how a few are designing their products to get a jump on the competition.

The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should require banks and mortgage lenders to obtain independent, third-party tests to ensure compliance with its guidelines, according to a government watchdog report.

In the coming months, banks, mortgage lenders, consumer advocates and policy wonks will be slicing and dicing the latest Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, as they do every year. Rarely, if ever, have the stakes been higher.

At least two mortgage servicers say they are close to being released from an OCC enforcement order that required 14 of the nation’s largest bank servicers to fix flaws in their foreclosure reviews. But the OCC says it has set no timetable for freeing any of the banks from the 2011 order.

Banks and mortgage lenders may have received too much relief from loan buybacks, putting taxpayers at greater risk for losses, according to a Federal Housing Finance Agency inspector general's report.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Fannie Mae may actually be helping banks and mortgage lenders boost their bottom lines through better oversight of their third-party vendors.

New regulatory and investor compliance requirements have put a renewed emphasis on quality control measures. But lenders are discovering the additional costs of these efforts are outweighed by the savings from originating fewer defective loans.

The Federal Housing Administration wants lenders to make fewer mistakes when writing mortgages for the government insurance program. The agency also wants to serve more borrowers with low credit scores. Getting both may be tricky.

A conservative housing critic and liberal consumer advocate have created a 15-year home loan for low-income borrowers to build more equity.

Banks with large mortgage operations are struggling with lower profit margins, detrimental fair-value accounting rules and new regulations that add cost. The market is discounting their stocks as a result, but many of these banks say the blanket assessment is unfair.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded two servicer ratings for Ocwen Loan Servicing, reflecting additional scrutiny by regulators and concerns about the nonbank mortgage servicer's ability to ensure timely payments to bondholders.

Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer took issue with a government watchdog report that criticized both his agency and the government-sponsored enterprises for failing to catch the massive fraud at Taylor, Bean & Whitaker.

The Charlotte, N.C., bank has lost more than $60 billion on its acquisition of Countrywide, including the cost of last week's big settlement with the Justice Department. But its issues are hardly over. The pain will continue for years as it has hundreds of thousands of delinquent, unsellable mortgage loans to work through.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae all overlooked warning signs about Taylor, Bean & Whitaker that make them partly to blame for the mortgage lender's multibillion fraud scheme, according to a government watchdog report.

Brian Moynihan has been in charge of Bank of America for nearly five years, and he has spent most of that time in lawyer mode, overseeing settlements worth $48 billion. He is generally praised for taking the bank to this point, but now comes the hard part: getting B of A to grow again.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency banned banks and mortgage servicers from accepting commissions on force-placed insurance policies issued by affiliated companies. At least one mortgage servicer, Ocwen Financial, has found a way around the ban.

PHH is appealing one of the largest judgments ever awarded in a mortgage case. The dispute encapsulates many of the problems that have plagued the servicing industry in recent years.

Though some borrowers will suffer from payment shock when home equity lines reach their end-of-draw-period after 10 years, the risks are isolated. Fewer than 20% of home equity lines have an elevated risk of default in the next few years, TransUnion found.

It sounds liked a great business formula: home loans soared at several megabanks last quarter after they spent months cutting thousands of jobs to save costs. But executives remain concerned about profit potential because market shifts and new regulations are making mortgage lending more expensive.