Compliance & Regulation

Details in recent legislation unveiled by Sens. Tim Johnson and Mike Crapo are stoking fresh concerns among Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders now embroiled in lawsuits over their share of profits from the mortgage giants.

The best thing to happen to the business over the last three decades was the development of the secondary agencies' automated underwriting engines. The worst? There are several strong contenders….

The vendor thinks it can meet lenders' needs by creating a system which manages the various tasks that must be completed to move a loan through the origination pipeline.

A court hearing this week could force housing officials to clarify a longstanding gray area in the reverse mortgage business: When the borrower dies, can the lender foreclose on a surviving spouse not named in the loan?

The settlement monitor gave the banks credit for $20 billion in relief – less than half the total provided, since only partial credit was given for breaks other than principal reduction.

The bill released by Sens. Tim Johnson and Mike Crapo would create a reinsurance fund to recoup losses on securities, establish a common securitization platform for the secondary mortgage market and open access to the secondary market for smaller lenders through a cooperative.

Mountain America Credit Union closed its first e-signed FHA mortgages, among the very first paperless loans executed under a policy enacted in January.

Two House Democrats joined Sen. Elizabeth Warren in asking for a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder about an inspector general's finding that his department's focus on mortgage fraud has not been as strong as advertised.

In the current tough mortgage environment, some lenders are willing to take the risk of lending to foreign nationals. The loans don't conform to regulations that took effect in January and typically are held on banks' balance sheets.

The Senate Banking Committee has forged a strong bipartisan agreement to reform the housing finance market, but how—and whether—that effort gets picked up in 2015 is still very much in question.