Compliance

There is growing evidence that Washington is making the same mistake with respect to the housing and mortgage markets.

First mortgages increased 2.8% from a year earlier in February, the largest year-over-year uptick since September 2008.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is striking an optimistic tone for mortgage finance reform, saying she’s hopeful that a Senate Banking Committee plan to overhaul the market could make it to the chamber floor for a vote this year.

Farmers have been benefiting from steady increases in commodity prices in recent years, partly driven by extreme weather. But the underpinnings of that growth seem to be on the wane.

Edward DeMarco will step down from the Federal Housing Finance Agency nearly five years after becoming its acting director.

Federal regulators issued a proposal Monday that would establish standards for states that register and supervise appraisal management companies.

Foreclosures and home loan delinquencies dropped in February while the refinancing slowdown continued, according to a monthly report from Black Knight Financial Services.

Lenders should avoid repeated mistakes in their process as they could be used as evidence of a fraudulent intention to originate loans without proper safeguards and underwriting processes.

Higher rates, mounting costs and the opportunity to lend to underserved borrowers have pushed some residential lenders to lower their minimum FICO scores, despite broader reluctance to take more risk in a heavily-regulated market.

Housing and lending groups are urging the government sponsored enterprise regulator and conservator to keep the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan limits where they are for now.

A coalition of advocacy groups announced their opposition Friday to a bill by Senate Banking Committee leaders to overhaul the housing finance system, citing concerns about market access for low-income and minority families.

The former owner of a New York mortgage loan modification business was sentenced Friday to serve nine years in prison for defrauding hundreds of distressed homeowners and their lenders.

The Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corp. (AGM) plans to sell $75 million worth of preferred stock in a public offering.

Lenders and servicers are worried about the cost of dealing with widows and widowers who didn't sign the mortgages if they can't be foreclosed upon.

When a lawyer wields a regularly updated, 150-page compliance manual as evidence against a mortgage servicer, it's more important than ever to make sure company documents are heavy on details.

Lenders won't be getting an eighth active mortgage insurance underwriter to choose from after all. But they may get repaid faster on claims from a carrier that's been winding down.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will suspend work on the Uniform Mortgage Servicing Dataset to conduct a fact-finding exercise to identify broader data standardization needs in the servicing industry.

The slowdown in housing since the middle of last year reflects a pickup in borrowing costs, declining affordability, limited job growth and, more recently, bad weather.

For the first time since the financial crisis of 2008, consumers are prioritizing their mortgages ahead of their credit card payments, according to TransUnion.

As home equity lines of credit hit the five-year mark and borrowers have to start repaying principal, lenders might have to modify these second liens to avert defaults.