Mortgage defaults

The California State Senate has approved legislation to expand the rights of widows, widowers and other heirs facing foreclosure following the death of a loved one.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is set to make the sales of nonperforming loans by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more transparent, including providing information on trends at the individual pool level, according to a top agency official.

After a series of recommendations this year that didn't quite go as planned, Goldman Sachs has a new top trade idea.

The Federal Housing Administration's loan sales are drawing more attention after a recent critical report said it was resulting in vulnerable borrowers losing their homes.

Foreclosure starts dropped nearly 17% from a year earlier last month, falling to their lowest level in a decade, according to Black Knight Financial Services.

Increased mortgage borrowing was behind a 1.1% rise in U.S. household debt in the first quarter, with slowdowns in other areas such as credit-card balances and auto loans, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Two recent court rulings affirmed that lenders can enforce electronically signed and transferred notes, laying important groundwork for wider adoption of electronic mortgage technology that could improve the customer experience for borrowers and save lenders and servicers a bundle.

Essent Group may have an opportunity to buy Radian Group, the rival mortgage insurer whose chief executive officer is stepping down.

The number of zombie foreclosures, properties in the foreclosure process that are vacant, dropped 30.1% from a year ago during the second quarter, according to RealtyTrac.

Radian Group, the second-largest U.S. mortgage insurer, said Chief Executive Officer S.A. Ibrahim will step down at the end of next year after steering the company through the financial crisis as weaker rivals collapsed.