Secondary

The details of the final Des-Moines-Seattle Home Loan Bank deal made it clear why this merger worked when past attempts had not and gave clues as to whether other institutions could one day follow suit. Following are three items that jumped out.

The New York City Housing Development Corp. board approved a $680 million inaugural sustainable neighborhood bond transaction, expected to price next week.

Invitation Homes, a subsidiary of Blackstone Group, is back with its third single-family rental securitization of the year.

Cerberus Capital Management is buying about 4,200 U.S. houses, expanding its foray into home rentals in the industry's largest bulk purchase.

Small banks and nonbank lenders are originating commercial mortgages with lower credit quality than the loans originated by large banks, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

The nationwide gain in income has fed Americans' optimism about housing, which could lead to a more active housing market this year, Fannie Mae said in a new report.

How interested banks, REITs and other investors will be in replacing the Federal Reserve as buyers of mortgage-backed securities insured by government-related entities depends on a wide range of regulatory and economic factors.

Securities issuers are increasingly worried that risk-retention requirements could hinder efforts to broaden the types of loans securitized through the private-label market as implementation for the new regulation nears.

Ocwen Financial's shares had fallen nearly 7% Friday afternoon, to under $10 apiece, a day after Standard & Poor's Ratings Services put the company's servicer ratings on CreditWatch negative.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is in talks to pay $2 billion to $3 billion to settle a probe into its sales of mortgage bonds leading up to the financial crisis, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.