Capital markets

Bank of New York Mellon has become a big believer in reverse mortgages, particularly home equity conversion mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

Home Partners of America is securitizing a portfolio of single family rental homes with a unique feature: the tenants lease-to-own.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency may face legislation or a lawsuit in the near future as it tries to force captive insurance companies to exit the Federal Home Loan Bank System.

MGIC Investment Corp. posted net income of $102.4 million in the fourth quarter, a gain of 36% from the $75.1 million it earned in the same period in 2014.

Barclays Plc is exiting residential mortgage and commercial mortgage backed securities trading and asset-backed derivative in the U.S., according to a memo seen by Bloomberg. Operations will be focused on origination-led ABS and primary CMBS.

Ocwen Financial Corp. will pay $2 million to settle charges that it misstated its financial results in valuing complex mortgage assets, said the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Redwood Trust in Mill Valley, Calif., plans to stop buying mortgage loans to resell to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as it looks to cut costs.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s fourth-quarter net income dropped 65% because of the costs to settle a mortgage probe.

Societe Generale SA is pulling back from the U.S. mortgage bond business just two years after building out the unit, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Credit Plus in Salisbury, Md., has introduced loan repurchase insurance for mortgage lenders and servicers that use its verification products.

Agency and government loan programs will be a little different in the next 12 months. There also will be new rules for private-label securitizations, along with new products available to investors. Here is an overview.

Spreads widened on Freddie Mac's latest offering of Structured Agency Credit Risk securities as investors demanded additional compensation for taking on the credit risk of mortgages insured by the company.

Community bankers and credit unions scored a significant victory while others in the mortgage industry lost out in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's final rule establishing membership standards for the Home Loan banks.

Private-label investors in residential mortgage-backed securities should be at only modest risk for noncompliance with TILA-RESPA integrated disclosure requirements, according to Fitch Ratings.

Amherst Holdings plans to market $400 million worth of bonds backed by single-family rental homes, according to Trepp.

The agency scrapped a part of its 2014 proposal that would have required Home Loan Bank members to maintain a certain percentage of residential mortgage assets in order to keep their membership. But the agency held fast on a provision that would disqualify captive insurance firms from membership.

A flattening of the yield curve could spell good news for the mortgage market, according to Fitch Ratings.

The Federal Reserve's interest rate increase has commercial real estate debt and equity financing players even more upbeat about their prospects in 2016.

Forget bigger is better. Several private-equity-backed lenders are making loans to small landlords, who represent the biggest chunk of the home-rental market and get less help from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than they once did.

Freddie Mac has formed a partnership with the Lenders One Mortgage co-operative to give its members benefits on pricing and in other areas.