GSEs

Barclays is ending trading in $700 billion of U.S. mortgage bonds that were issued before the financial crisis.

The legal challenge to the government's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not necessarily a slam-dunk victory, despite an apparent favorable legal ruling in a similar case, analysts at KBW said.

Access to credit is too tight. New credit-scoring models could increase the number of eligible borrowers in the U.S. without weakening todays underwriting parameters.

Almost seven years after the financial crisis, bond investors are rediscovering their appetite for new debt tied to the housing market.

The homebuilding industry enjoyed its best two months in more than seven years as it headed into its busiest season, even as it began work on fewer houses last month following an April surge.

The decline in foreclosures and short sales is contributing to the dearth of housing inventory, complicating the prospects for home buyers feeling the pinch of tight credit and lenders that need purchase mortgages to supplant refinancing once interest rates rise.

Freddie Mac is planning its fifth risk-sharing transaction of the year.

Transactions involving residential mortgage-backed securities should include a manager to improve accountability, Fitch Ratings has recommended.

Private mortgage insurers see deeper coverage of GSE loans as a way to expand business, while lenders hope it could lead to a reduction to guarantee fees.

Ocwen Financial's sale of mortgage-servicing rights should generate sufficient liquidity for the Atlanta company to meet its debt-payment obligations, Moody's Investors Service said.

Mortgage rates jumped to an eight-month high, making home purchases costlier as investors prepare for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

A bipartisan group of Senate Banking Committee members is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to make risk-sharing a higher priority for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie and Freddie should offer upfront risk-sharing options in order to give lenders an opportunity to lower their guarantee fees while encouraging more private capital and competition to flow into the secondary mortgage market.

The details of the final Des-Moines-Seattle Home Loan Bank deal made it clear why this merger worked when past attempts had not and gave clues as to whether other institutions could one day follow suit. Following are three items that jumped out.

The nationwide gain in income has fed Americans' optimism about housing, which could lead to a more active housing market this year, Fannie Mae said in a new report.

How interested banks, REITs and other investors will be in replacing the Federal Reserve as buyers of mortgage-backed securities insured by government-related entities depends on a wide range of regulatory and economic factors.

Ocwen Financial's shares had fallen nearly 7% Friday afternoon, to under $10 apiece, a day after Standard & Poor's Ratings Services put the company's servicer ratings on CreditWatch negative.

Mortgage credit availability rose less than 1% in May, according to data released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Freddie Mac's weekly survey of the primary mortgage market found average interest rates for conforming loan products to be fairly stable.

The share of high loan-to-value ratio purchase loans is at a two-year high, according to RealtyTrac's 2015 Down Payment Report for the first quarter, released Thursday.