Compliance

Many active-duty service members are unaware that they are eligible to postpone mortgage payments under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. A group of major financial services companies have pledged to improve communication about this option, according to the Financial Services Roundtable's Tim Pawlenty and John Dalton.

It is clear that the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has made the mortgage industry a top priority and its supervised entities have had to fall in line with its expansive rules and regulations quickly.

Many banks are aggressively closing branches to cut costs. Those banks must be mindful about branches in moderate- and low-income neighborhoods or risk downgrades after their next Community Reinvestment Act examination.

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.

A drop in homeownership among the native-born population, coupled with a pickup in the pace of homeownership gains among those who immigrated to the U.S. have narrowed the homeownership gap between the two demographics during the last decade, according to Fannie Mae research.

Sen. Sherrod Brown may give the country's biggest banks heartburn, but there are signs he's positioning himself as an industry ally ahead of a potential bid to run the Banking Committee.

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.

Lower volume and improved processes are being credited for making mortgage lenders more efficient at getting loans through the origination process.

Home flipping, in which a buyer resells a property quickly for a profit, is on the decline as residential price gains slow and foreclosures dwindle.

Bank of America must pay a record amount for mortgage-related claims, but the accord still leaves questions about tax liability and other banks in the government's crosshairs.

Brian Moynihan has been in charge of Bank of America for nearly five years, and he has spent most of that time in lawyer mode, overseeing settlements worth $48 billion. He is generally praised for taking the bank to this point, but now comes the hard part: getting B of A to grow again.

Federal Housing Administration Commissioner Carol Galante signaled more affordable FHA financing could be coming as the agency’s insurance fund improves.

A mortgage industry laden with government enticements has no choice but to honor a duty to serve its benefactor's affordable housing goals, claim the contributing authors of a new book.

The benefits of homeownership are often cited in policy debates, though it has some downsides. Following are the advantages and costs of homeownership for neighborhoods and communities, as summarized in a recent research paper by Jason Fichtner and Jacob Feldman at George Mason University.

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.

Bank of America Corp. will pay $16.65 billion to end federal and state probes into mortgage bond sales, the harshest penalty yet related to loans that fueled the 2008 financial crisis, the Justice Department said.

The CFPB's definition does not tell the full story, so real estate agents need to move with caution, no matter what kind of letter a consumer brings from a mortgage loan officer.