Secondary

The Federal Housing Administration is cutting its annual mortgage insurance premium by 25 basis points, lowering it to 60 basis points starting Jan. 27, the agency said Monday.

The House Financial Services Committee will see a shuffling of deck chairs among the leadership of its subcommittees in the new Congress as it also welcomes 10 new Republican members.

Ohio has prohibited the use of plywood to board up certain vacant or abandoned properties in foreclosure.

Initiatives aimed at a more inclusive credit box have long relied on costly approaches that are difficult to scale. Now, demographic shifts are intensifying industry demand for a more automated and efficient solution.

Weakness in the energy sector and a surge in new construction are pushing up vacancy rates at offices and hotels, leading to a spike in delinquencies on loans tied to them. The safer bet, bankers say, is lending on industrial properties.

The lending arm of U.S. Department of Agriculture guaranteed 3,439 single-family construction loans in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017, which ended Dec. 31, but just nine of those loans involved its new single-close construction-to-permanent financing option.

Former Jefferies LLC managing director Jesse Litvak "lied to his customers" about the prices of mortgage-backed securities, a prosecutor told jurors as the U.S tries for a second time to win a conviction that sticks.

Demographics are shifting, creating more prospective minority homebuyers than ever before. But predominant underwriting processes and these would-be borrowers' financial backgrounds are holding them back.

Mortgage credit availability grew for the fourth consecutive month in December, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported.

Mortgage interest rates dropped for the first time since the presidential election in the first week of the new year, Freddie Mac reported.