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Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and David Vitter, R-La., filed a handful of "too big to fail" amendments Friday to a pending Senate Banking Committee bill to overhaul the housing finance market.

Senate Banking Committee leaders want to win as much support as possible for their housing finance reform legislation before a panel vote on Tuesday, but it's possible that a failure to win over certain members could ultimately assist their cause.

U.S. prosecutors are seeking more than $13 billion from Bank of America to resolve federal and state investigations of the lender’s sale of bonds backed by home loans in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

Fears that the Federal Reserve's reduction in mortgage-backed securities purchases this year would cause rates to skyrocket failed to come true. That's partly because there's less mortgage paper to buy.

Private-label residential mortgage securitizations are designed around a strict hierarchy of classes.

The Senate GSE reform bill may bloat the bureaucracy, encourage risky behavior and expose taxpayers to losses, without sufficient support for affordable housing. That could still be better than nothing.

A powerful group of shareholders is amplifying attacks on housing finance reform legislation as they await resolution of a major legal battle, attempting to slow momentum on the bill before it likely passes the Senate Banking Committee.

Mortgage bondholders have long complained to regulators that the national mortgage settlement gave large bank servicers credit for principal reductions and loan modifications they did not pay for themselves.

The recent housing recovery has been the saving grace for some 2005-2007 subprime mortgage bonds, but in others, delays in getting distressed properties to market have offset home price gains.

As drafted, the Johnson-Crapo bill would allow big banks to originate, aggregate, and guarantee mortgages. Small lenders worry such vertically integrated companies could price them out of the business.