Servicing

Home prices have come back, but how strong and for how long? Freddie Mac has created a quick way to get a handle on the national and local housing markets.

With more reliable loan data, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have greater confidence that borrowers would not default. In return, lenders would receive a juicy carrot: fewer buyback requests.

The agency skipped its first-quarter sale due to processing issues, partly the result of budget cuts and last year's federal shutdown.

First mortgages increased 2.8% from a year earlier in February, the largest year-over-year uptick since September 2008.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is striking an optimistic tone for mortgage finance reform, saying she’s hopeful that a Senate Banking Committee plan to overhaul the market could make it to the chamber floor for a vote this year.

Home sales activity rose in most of the largest U.S. counties in February after a slowdown in January, but total sales remain far below historical levels, according to DataQuick.

Foreclosures and home loan delinquencies dropped in February while the refinancing slowdown continued, according to a monthly report from Black Knight Financial Services.

The former owner of a New York mortgage loan modification business was sentenced Friday to serve nine years in prison for defrauding hundreds of distressed homeowners and their lenders.

Most housing markets are faring better than they did in the depths of the recession, but the recovery still has a long way to go.

Lenders and servicers are worried about the cost of dealing with widows and widowers who didn't sign the mortgages if they can't be foreclosed upon.