Economy

A decade after home sales peaked, 15.4% of owners in the first quarter owed more on their mortgages than their properties were worth.

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro touted the Federal Housing Administration’s recent improvement on Thursday, saying it was on a trajectory to hit its statutory minimum and had recently seen a "significant uptick in refinancings."

Private mortgage insurers see deeper coverage of GSE loans as a way to expand business, while lenders hope it could lead to a reduction to guarantee fees.

Redwood Trust's latest residential mortgage securitization, Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2015-3, is backed by a slightly larger percentage of loans that fall outside of new ability-to-repay rules.

Home equity in the first quarter rose to $11.7 trillion, the highest since 2007, according to a Federal Reserve report.

Ocwen Financial's sale of mortgage-servicing rights should generate sufficient liquidity for the Atlanta company to meet its debt-payment obligations, Moody's Investors Service said.

Mortgage rates jumped to an eight-month high, making home purchases costlier as investors prepare for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

A bipartisan group of Senate Banking Committee members is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to make risk-sharing a higher priority for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The mortgage lender Nationstar Mortgage Holdings is pouring a lot of energy into a digital and mobile homebuying platform called Xome. The strategy could attract tech-savvy millennials but carries plenty of risks including whether consumers would be improperly steered to its products.

Stewart Title Guaranty has agreed to offer a voluntary Deloitte & Touche compliance service to its independent title and settlement agents.

Most Americans still believe the country remains in a housing crisis, according to a new study from the MacArthur Foundation.

Renting a home is a better way to accumulate wealth than buying a home in many U.S. cities, according to the latest Buy vs. Rent report.

Fannie and Freddie should offer upfront risk-sharing options in order to give lenders an opportunity to lower their guarantee fees while encouraging more private capital and competition to flow into the secondary mortgage market.

The details of the final Des-Moines-Seattle Home Loan Bank deal made it clear why this merger worked when past attempts had not and gave clues as to whether other institutions could one day follow suit. Following are three items that jumped out.

Hovnanian Enterprises fell the most since 2011 after Chief Executive Officer Ara Hovnanian said he was disappointed following a widening in the company's quarterly loss and drop in its profit margin.

The gap between how much homeowners think their home is worth compared to appraisers' values has grown wider, according to a Quicken Loans report.

The New York City Housing Development Corp. board approved a $680 million inaugural sustainable neighborhood bond transaction, expected to price next week.

Cerberus Capital Management is buying about 4,200 U.S. houses, expanding its foray into home rentals in the industry's largest bulk purchase.

Community Investment Corp. has raised $200 million from about three dozen banks to acquire and rehabilitate thousands of affordable rental-housing units in the Chicago area.

Small banks and nonbank lenders are originating commercial mortgages with lower credit quality than the loans originated by large banks, according to a Fitch Ratings report.