GSEs

Mortgage-focused real estate investment trusts, including those affiliated with Western Asset Management and Pine River Capital Management, are backing loans to Americans who don't meet banks' requirements.

While put-backs and litigation risk are widely recognized as factors that have contributed to tight credit conditions, another factor — high servicing costs for nonperforming loans — is being overlooked.

Mortgage rates fell for a second week, holding at the lowest level in more than a year and a half, as declining financing costs boost loan demand.

A federal agency's plan to tighten membership rules for Federal Home Loan banks would hurt community banks and credit unions — and could endanger the financial system, according to a broad array of stakeholders, including state regulators, lawmakers and institutions.

Government-backed U.S. mortgage bonds are off to their worst start relative to Treasuries since at least 1997 as investors in the $5.5 trillion market brace for a surge in homeowner refinancing.

Wells Fargo saw more of its origination volume come from refinancings, while JPMorgan Chase continues to rebuild its correspondent channel, the banks said in their fourth-quarter results.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have boosted risk-sharing transactions in the past year by more than fourfold, according to Fitch Ratings.

Fears that lower Federal Housing Administration premiums will negatively affect private mortgage insurance firms are overblown. If anything, the plan should be a modest positive for the overall housing market.

Freddie Mac in the next month plans to approve three more lenders, including one bank, to make multifamily loans between $1 million and $5 million for GSE purchase and securitization, according to an official. Banks were not initially courted.

Lenders need to use nontraditional means of measuring a borrower's likelihood of default.

Freddie Mac's first three risk-sharing transactions of 2015 are all insurance policies.

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Nomura Holdings Inc., refusing to derail federal government lawsuits that seek billions of dollars over the sale of risky mortgage-backed securities.

Mortgage credit availability loosened in December, according to a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Mortgage rates dropped to the lowest level in more than a year and a half as falling oil prices and concerns about the strength of the euro drove investors to the safety of the U.S. government bonds that guide borrowing costs.

After the release of President Obama's plan to make housing more affordable by cutting mortgage-insurance premiums charged by a federal agency, bond investors responded by pushing up interest rates on the same loans.

President Obama is expected to announce a half-percentage-point reduction in the Federal Housing Administration's annual premium during a housing policy speech Thursday in Phoenix.

Consumers remained cautious about the housing market in December despite optimism that the economy is improving, according to Fannie Mae's National Housing Survey.

Angelo Gordon & Co. is seeking to raise as much as $750 million for a fund to invest in soured mortgages as banks and government agencies sell boom-era home loans at discounts.

An independent mortgage bank will sell a mortgage servicing rights portfolio with $4.2 billion in unpaid principal balance, an advisor to the transaction announced this week.

Mortgage denials in 2013 were comparable to those recorded a decade ago, analyses of HMDA data show, challenging perceptions about how easy lending really was during the era of "pulse" loans and "fog-a-mirror finance."