Secondary

Essent Group Ltd., the mortgage-insurer backed by George Soros and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., is beating older rivals in the stock market as the U.S. plans to tighten regulation of the industry.

New rules are illuminating a once-shadowy market where servicers can be quick to modify loans and may have few qualms about principal reduction. Discounts or equity make such flexibility possible.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae all overlooked warning signs about Taylor, Bean & Whitaker that make them partly to blame for the mortgage lender's multibillion fraud scheme, according to a government watchdog report.

Freddie Mac expects housing demand and supply to increase through next year as the economy gradually returns to normalcy.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $3.15 billion to repurchase residential mortgage-backed securities to resolve federal claims tied to the sale of the bonds to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Goldman Sachs is in the final stages of negotiating $1.1 billion settlement with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to a news report Friday.

Delta Lloyds' latest Dutch residential mortgage securitization has an innovative work-around to regulations that make it unattractive to use swaps to hedge interest rate mismatch.

Bank of America Corp. will pay $245 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it failed to disclose rising mortgage losses and the risks of bonds tied to home loans.

Universal American Mortgage Co., the mortgage banking subsidiary of Lennar Corp., one of the nation's largest homebuilders, has acquired certain assets of Colorado-based Pinnacle Mortgage Group.

The hot-button topic of what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should charge for loan guarantees is emerging as a key issue in reviving a private-label securitization market.