Compliance & Regulation

Investors continue to demand additional yield for exposure to defaults on loans insured by the Fannie Mae.

Fannie and Freddie have been selling pools of delinquent mortgages at auction to the highest bidders. Community groups say the Federal Housing Finance Agency should be giving preferential treatment to nonprofits and community development financial institutions.

Despite the outcry prompted by lenders' commercials during Super Bowl 50, customer satisfaction surveys indicate borrowers are more than ready for the ease and convenience of digital options.

The Federal Housing Administration will continue to charge borrowers an annual premium over the entire life of the loan, rejecting calls from some housing advocates to change how it’s calculated.

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $3.2 billion to end a joint federal-state investigation into its handling of mortgage-backed securities, the fourth deal to be struck in a probe of the big U.S. banks' role in the subprime mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis it spawned.

The Federal Home Loan Bank system is not a private country club and shouldn't be operating as one. Captive insurance companies represent new potential to expand homeownership opportunities for credit-worthy borrowers.

Redwood Trust said it will stop originating commercial mortgages for securitization and focus solely on investing in bonds backed by commercial mortgages originated by others.

Fitch Ratings is warning about the mezzanine tranches of commercial mortgage securitization by Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, though it is still rating the notes.

Many institutional investors are refusing to purchase mortgages loans until they get assurance from the CFPB that they won't have to pay for others' mistakes. Their pullback could further the slow the issuance of private-label mortgage bonds this year, a huge concern at a time when the majority of home loans are insured by Fannie, Freddie and the FHA.

U.S. Bancorp agreed to pay $10 million while Banco Santander settled for $3.4 million following missteps in how they handled earlier orders from regulators to fix faulty foreclosure practices, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.