Finance

Goldman Sachs said it agreed to settle a U.S. probe into its handling of mortgage-backed securities for about $5.1 billion, cutting its fourth-quarter profit by about $1.5 billion.

Spreads widened on Freddie Mac's latest offering of Structured Agency Credit Risk securities as investors demanded additional compensation for taking on the credit risk of mortgages insured by the company.

Community bankers and credit unions scored a significant victory while others in the mortgage industry lost out in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's final rule establishing membership standards for the Home Loan banks.

Private-label investors in residential mortgage-backed securities should be at only modest risk for noncompliance with TILA-RESPA integrated disclosure requirements, according to Fitch Ratings.

Amherst Holdings plans to market $400 million worth of bonds backed by single-family rental homes, according to Trepp.

The agency scrapped a part of its 2014 proposal that would have required Home Loan Bank members to maintain a certain percentage of residential mortgage assets in order to keep their membership. But the agency held fast on a provision that would disqualify captive insurance firms from membership.

Walker & Dunlop has agreed to acquire the other half of a commercial mortgage-backed securities joint venture it has with Fortress Investment Group.

The commercial mortgage-backed securities delinquency rate finished 2015 at a six-year low, according to Fitch Ratings.

CrediFi, a New York-based provider of commercial property data, is launching CMBS Suite, which it said is an information resource for lenders looking to refinance securitized commercial mortgages.

A flattening of the yield curve could spell good news for the mortgage market, according to Fitch Ratings.

The Federal Reserve's interest rate increase has commercial real estate debt and equity financing players even more upbeat about their prospects in 2016.

Forget bigger is better. Several private-equity-backed lenders are making loans to small landlords, who represent the biggest chunk of the home-rental market and get less help from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than they once did.

Freddie Mac has formed a partnership with the Lenders One Mortgage co-operative to give its members benefits on pricing and in other areas.

KeyCorp is hiring Royal Bank of Canada's head of mortgage-bond trading, Joe Vaccaro, and structured products salesman Mike Corsi as the regional lender expands its bond business, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

Clayton Holdings in Shelton, Conn., has opened a consulting office in Silicon Valley to work with financial technology companies.

Fannie Mae said that those affected by floods across the Midwest may have access to mortgage assistance.

The demand for affordable rental properties has long outstripped the supply, with the gap widening as incomes have stagnated, homeownership rates have fallen and rents have soared in recent years. But now, banks are finding a profitable path to helping ease this severe national shortage.

Two Harbors is marketing its first residential mortgage securitization of the year, according to Fitch Ratings.

As the mortgage industry begins the New Year, National Mortgage News takes a look at the biggest trends and topics that will shape 2016.

John Angelo, who co-founded Angelo, Gordon & Co. and presided 27 years over the New York investment firm's growth to $26 billion in assets under management, has died. He was 74.