Secondary

Mortgage rates declined for the third straight week, with lenders on average offering 3.63 percent on a 30-year fixed loan, Freddie Mac reported Thursday.

This isn't the kind of non-qualified mortgage securitization that investors have been clamoring for.

Mortgage rates near record lows, an improving job market and gradually easing credit standards will converge to make it the best year for home construction since 2007, say economists.

Home prices rose more than economists estimated in November, a sign job growth is helping to boost housing demand.

The pension fund sector owns hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage securities. But MBS holdings are such a small percentage of their portfolios, pensions may not be aware of their heft in the industry.

Julian Castro, secretary of housing and urban development, said 2015 will be a year of "housing opportunity" as the economy continues its rebound.

Yields on government-backed mortgage securities that guide U.S. home-loan rates widened to the most relative to Treasuries in almost three months as refinancing soars amid lower borrowing costs.

Standard & Poor's is close to an agreement to pay $1.4 billion to settle claims by the Justice Department and states attorneys general that it inflated subprime mortgage-bond ratings before the financial crisis, according to two people with knowledge of the talks.

Standard & Poor’s agreed to a one-year suspension from rating certain commercial mortgage bonds and $80 million in fines to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York and Massachusetts Attorneys Generals offices.

Canyon Partners is paring its bullish investments in the mortgage-bond market after the hedge fund made about $7 billion in the past decade capitalizing on opportunities leading up to and following the financial crisis.