Compliance

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara today announced the unsealing of a felony complaint against Seth Beoku-Betts, founder of Betts & Gambles LLC, for defrauding a Midwestern state university in 2008.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and The Rockefeller Foundation have launched a multistage regional design competition that aims to promote housing construction innovation in Hurricane Sandy-affected areas.

Yields on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage bonds that guide U.S. home loan rates rose to the highest in more than 14 months as the Federal Reserve said risks to the economy have decreased.

Wells Fargo & Co. marketed a risky securities-lending program as safe and ended up causing millions of dollars in losses for institutional investors, a lawyer said as the trial of a lawsuit against the bank began.

News that Wells Fargo and Bank of America failed to comply with the mortgage loan modification timeline processing requirements of the mortgage servicing standards mandated by the national mortgage settlement are bittersweet for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Felony charges were filed against Robert Williams, an investor who pleaded guilty for his role in conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at foreclosure auctions.

When it comes to whether to outsource valuations or keep them in-house, opinions can be fierce, but the best advice is to not close the door to either until one has carefully examined all the pros and cons in line with which best matches a particular company’s size or situation.

Rep. Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, is asking for an investigation into claims that Bank of America purposefully delayed borrowers from entering the Home Affordable Modification Program.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($417,500 or less) increased to 4.17%, the highest rate since March 2012.

ServiceLink has made available a multipurpose tool designed to ensure the mortgage loan data lenders and servicers report and record electronically is accurately transferred and in compliance with regulators.

Investors still want to buy in the commercial mortgage-backed securities sector while performance is relatively good, but they are mindful that recent origination standards are slipping and there are risks in CMBS 1.0 too.

The Mortgage Grapevine is discussing a scenario where the borrower is reluctant to have an appraiser come in because there are two rooms which were added to the property but are not on the tax rolls.

Mortgage industry consulting firm zIngenuity has acquired Irwin Reinsurance Corp., a Vermont-domiciled captive reinsurance firm, and merged it into what it describes as a an indirect subsidiary called zInsureRe in the Cayman Islands.

The owner of a California mortgage brokerage company was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay more than $5.8 million in restitution for her role in a real estate-related wire fraud conspiracy.

These grants are expected to assist more than 1.6 million households in their efforts to find affordable housing, make more informed housing choices and avoid foreclosure.

Rising interest rates may trim issuance of commercial-mortgage bonds by $15 billion this year, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Is the bar set so low that investors must dictate to servicers what the minimums are and how to manage the very basic elements of our business?

The National Security Agency spying scandal, sparked by news that the NSA has been monitoring phone and e-mail records of millions of Americans, could spill over into the mortgage industry.

Where industry credit limits stand and why was among the topics discussed by a group of industry executives convened by Origination News at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Secondary Market Conference in New York.

The recent rise in home prices has a number of observers concerned, and a Mortgage Grapevine post refers to recent article in a Denver newspaper on that topic.