Victoria Finkle

Sens. Tim Johnson, chairman of the Banking Committee, and Mike Crapo, the top Republican, laid out a preliminary bipartisan agreement on housing finance reform after months of deliberation.

Rules enacted last year appear to be steadily forcing banks to exit the mortgage servicing business, transferring such rights to nonbanks. The situation is stoking fears on Capitol Hill and elsewhere that regulators went too far.

Sens. Tim Johnson and Mike Crapo are close to unveiling a highly anticipated bipartisan bill to overhaul the mortgage finance market as the window for moving legislation this year continues to narrow.

There's an elephant in the room amidst discussions on how to unwind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the two government-sponsored enterprises are now making money hand over fist.

President Obama hit on several important issues for bankers in his annual address to Congress Tuesday night, including mortgage finance reform, though as expected financial services issues largely took a backseat to other national concerns, like unemployment and the minimum wage.

More than five years after the financial crisis, President Obama could once again turn some attention to the Dodd-Frank Act and the housing market during his State of the Union address.

Rep. Mel Watt cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate Tuesday toward becoming the next director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, with a final confirmation vote to come as early as this afternoon.

The Senate Banking Committee is making progress toward drafting legislation to overhaul the mortgage finance market, but one of the biggest unresolved issues is how much skin in the game private market participants must have in return for a government guarantee.

The battle over how to craft affordable housing requirements as part of mortgage finance reform took center stage on Thursday as witnesses at a Senate Banking Committee hearing sparred over the issue, including whether dedicated funds should be subject to Congressional appropriations.

The Senate Banking Committee dug into the details Tuesday of how to ensure that community banks retain access to a reformed housing finance system as agreement over a broad approach began to emerge.

Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., faces an uphill confirmation battle this week to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, but it's unlikely to be the end of the war.

The Treasury Department's Michael Stegman further bolstered the Obama administration's support of Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency on Tuesday, describing how the agency's policies must intersect with mortgage finance reform efforts in Congress.

The Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act includes an agreement to delay premium increases for about four years.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren weighed in publicly for the first time on the substance of the housing finance reform debate on Tuesday, endorsing a limited but explicit government guarantee, strong underwriting rules and servicer oversight, and secondary market access for smaller institutions.

With Chairman Hensarling's plan to overhaul the mortgage finance market stuck in limbo, several Democrats have begun work on alternative proposals that could further divide support for the GOP bill.

Timothy Pawlenty, president and chief executive of the Financial Services Roundtable, predicted that housing finance reform will pass after the 2014 midterm elections.

The Federal Housing Administration will take a $1.7 billion draw from the U.S. Treasury to shore up its books at the end of the fiscal year, the first transfer it has required in its 79-year history.

Sen. Bob Corker, a co-author of legislation to overhaul the mortgage finance market, forcefully defended his proposal that private capital take at least 10% of the first loss on mortgage-backed securities.

Lawmakers are beginning to look more closely at the impact of a hike in federal flood insurance premiums set to go into effect next month, which some bankers warn could topple the still weakened real estate market in certain regions.

Former Rep. Barney Frank criticized regulators' latest effort to craft an exemption for proposed risk retention requirements, warning it was overly broad.