Compliance & Regulation

The battle over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is moving from Congress to the courts.

President Obama followed his recess appointment of Richard Cordray with a personal visit Friday to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which he called "one of the most important agencies for people that there is."

Neil Barofsky is not letting the Obama administration off the hook.

It's a distinction that doesn't portray the mortgage business in a very good light. But it's a milestone nonetheless: The national Loan Modification Scam Database has now collected more than 20,000 complaints.

As highlighted by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate in their recently released annual survey, some legislators are proposing to relieve somewhat the burden of the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act in ways could help real estate investment trust stockholders, and there is a potential development this year that could move such a proposal forward.

My inbox was slammed by emails from readers who said "right on" to my commentary that the White House is (wrongly) using mortgage brokers as a whipping boy for the mortgage crisis. But some larger questions still loom: Does this White House even know what a loan broker is? I would guess not.

Current management of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorships is contributing to tight mortgage credit conditions, holding back a recovery in the housing market, according to a Federal Reserve Board official.

Regulatory impediments may have the power to considerably change not only one's ability to engage in a mortgage-related transaction but to impact larger housing performance in 2012.

The New York Court of Appeals late Thursday agreed to allow the National Association of Federal Credit Unions to argue that the state's federally chartered CUs should be exempt from the state's mortgage recordation tax.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is using its authority over non-banks to target independent mortgage servicing companies.