Secondary

A big investor in SWS Group has objected to the Dallas company's planned sale to Hilltop Holdings.

After a year in which bankers have voiced steady opposition to the qualified mortgage rule, more than a third now say they will make non-QM loans in targeted markets, a major reversal from the industry's past stance.

After slogging through several quarters of high expenses and shrinking profits, some lenders are now selling mortgage servicing rights to raise cash to cover payroll and expenses, industry sources say.

The apartment-lending units of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were among their few money makers after the U.S. housing collapse. Now they should help transform the U.S. mortgage industry.

Efforts to help underwater borrowers with second liens have had little success, and the Treasury's authority to create new homeowner aid programs under the Troubled Asset Relief Program has expired.

New rules should protect the FHA from losses on reverse mortgages and make prepayments more predictable for bond investors, but they also slow the production of loans available for securitization.

Secondary market agency won't securitize fixed-rate Home Equity Conversion Mortgages that feature a line of credit.

Barriers exist to full-blown recovery in the housing market. Structural barriers. Economic barriers. Regulatory barriers. The list is endless.

Hilltop Holdings in Dallas has finally reached an agreement to buy the remaining shares in SWS Group that it does not already own.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta has appointed Bank of Georgetown Chairman Michael Fitzgerald to its board of directors.