Finance

Mortgage interest rates rose by three basis points compared with the previous week, the first time there has been an increase since the last week of December, according to Freddie Mac.

Regulatory attention is supposed to be laser-focused on servicers right now, especially when it comes to how consistent they are in applying workouts. So regulators should be looking closely at whether loans have forbearance.

A judge rejected a bid by the U.S. to put on hold a series of suits by Fairholme Funds and other investors challenging the diversion of profits from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to the Treasury.

Joining the hunt for higher-yielding niche loans, the asset management unit of NewOak Capital has quietly launched a private fund to acquire nonqualified residential mortgages.

Societe Generale is entering the U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities market and has hired a team of more than 10 people from Royal Bank of Scotland Group for the effort.

Before the Dodd Frank Act went into effect in 2010, the residential mortgage market was in an entirely different state — particularly in regards to servicing. Several large servicers dominated the market, but ultimately shed most of their servicing assets, creating a substantially large segment of midsize servicers.

Aiming to address a nationwide shortage of affordable housing, FHA has launched a risk-sharing pilot program that it hopes will encourage community development lenders to finance the rehabilitation of smaller multifamily apartments.

Lenders could save time and money by offering homeowners the opportunity to finance the purchase of a rooftop solar system into a new mortgage.

Arch Capital Group is repurposing a subsidiary to insure mortgages that are headed for private securitizations. Insuring such loans separately from the unit that works with Fannie and Freddie lets Arch offer more favorable terms to lenders.

The business of bundling riskier U.S. mortgages into bonds without government backing is gearing up for a comeback. Just don't call it subprime.

With conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac well into its seventh year, the government has now had control of the housing agencies longer than 47 members of the Senate have been office.

Progress Residential priced its second securitization of single-family rental properties.

Ocwen Financial Corp., one of the biggest U.S. mortgage servicers, rejected as "groundless" accusations by an investor group that the company’s practices created defaults on home-loan bonds backed by debt it oversees.

Freddie Mac is selling $410 million of deeply delinquent U.S. home loans in its second sale of the debt.

Mortgage professional hiring and new job appointments for the week ending Jan. 23.

BlueMountain Capital Management is claiming that "misconduct" by Ocwen Financial Corp. triggered a default in securities issued by an affiliate of the mortgage servicer.

A new forecast from Freddie Mac suggests that mortgage rates will remain stable for the first two quarters of 2015.

This isn't the kind of non-qualified mortgage securitization that investors have been clamoring for.

The pension fund sector owns hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage securities. But MBS holdings are such a small percentage of their portfolios, pensions may not be aware of their heft in the industry.

Yields on government-backed mortgage securities that guide U.S. home-loan rates widened to the most relative to Treasuries in almost three months as refinancing soars amid lower borrowing costs.