Secondary

Julian Castro pledged to recapitalize the FHA insurance fund and work with Congress on GSE reform but equivocated when a Senator asked about cities condemning underwater mortgages.

Smaller banks face a tricky choice with jumbo loans: hold them and face rate risk, or sell them to a bigger bank and risk losing a customer. An unusual arrangement between the FHLB and a REIT could offer community banks a better route.

WinWater is the first new jumbo residential mortgage-backed securities issuer to put a deal in the pipeline since 2013. More new players could bring deals to market late this year.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are exempt from state and local taxes, including transfer taxes, a Washington appeals court ruled in the latest decision shielding the government-owned mortgage finance companies from attempts to collect levies on property transfers.

The Justice Department has asked Citigroup for more than $10 billion to settle a probe into the lender's sale of mortgage-backed bonds in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis.

The Chicago Federal Home Loan Bank reaches agreement with Redwood Trust so member institutions can sell loans to the private-label issuer.

A downpayment remains a high hurdle for consumers seeking mortgages. Lowering this hurdle increasingly seems in line with industry and regulatory goals—assuming borrowers don't default. There's the rub.

LenderLive Network is expanding its correspondent lending channel by offering to buy jumbo mortgages from members of the Independent Community Bankers of America.

By obtaining a third-party opinion that provides a reasoned analysis supporting borrowers' ability to repay, a lender places itself in a substantially stronger position with respect to subsequent ATR claims.

The Legg Mason unit plans to buy mortgages made to self-employed borrowers who may not have the documentation for qualified mortgages as well as interest-only loan.