Compliance & Regulation

As fraudsters reinvent themselves, insiders warn about recent increases in short-sale fraud and call for preventive monitoring.

Every housing market investor has a certain mindset that guides decisions as to where to put their money, why, and when. Optimally, this "investment mentality" is not concerned with consumption or waste, but rather is focused on how to minimize risk and multiply hard earned dollars.

Swamped by huge volumes of delinquent mortgages, servicing managers at Bank of America, and Wells Fargo & Co. placed heavy pressure on staff to speed up handling of documents used to process foreclosures without properly reviewing their work, according to HUD audits released Tuesday.

The Lawyers’ Committee and counsel Davis Polk & Wardwell filed a lawsuit this week in New York Supreme Court in Nassau County on behalf of 18 homeowners claiming that a network of for-profit loan modification companies are conducting a fraudulent scam.

This week's congressional agenda features two hearings on housing, and a panel in San Antonio looking at the impact of new regulations on Texas lenders.

U.S. Bancorp has moved all its home appraisals to an in-house unit overseen by a senior risk officer, breaking from the way most banks handle valuations of residential properties.

When faced with a national issue like the housing crisis, there are times we need to put aside the arguments about who to blame and who should bear the cost so that we can focus on an immediate issue that must be addressed soon in order to help maintain the recovery from the negative impacts the crisis has imparted on all participants.

Part of an agreement with regulators that could result in principal reductions planned for 200,000 residential mortgages owned or serviced by Bank of America as could benefit the bank but could be neutral to negative for some residential mortgage-backed securities bondholders, according to a recent Fitch report.

William S. Haraf, the commissioner of California's Department of Financial Institutions, has resigned from the post, effective March 16.

The departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development, along with 49 state attorneys general, filed their joint $25 billion agreement with the nation's five largest mortgage servicers in court Monday.