Mortgages

Home prices rose 1.1% in June after a 1% increase in May as values in 19 of the 20 metropolitan areas tracked by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller house price index registered monthly gains.

For those of us who live on the East Coast, we certainly had plenty of reminders about impending disasters this past week.

Municipalities are increasingly holding mortgage securitization trustsliable for the upkeep of properties, which could affect investors'cashflows, according to a new report from Moody's Investors Service.

Fresh off its initial public offering of common stock, real estate listing and mortgage rate search website company Zillow posted its first ever quarterly profit since its launch in 2006.

Mortgage Banking Solutions, Woodway, Texas, says it is currently working on four merger-related transactions with announcements on two of them coming shortly.

Lenders would compete to refinance underwater mortgages if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stopped demanding "put backs" when new loans default, according to mortgage strategists at Bank of America/ Merrill Lynch.

Even if the White House can pull off a large scale refinancing program to help troubled homeowners it likely won't help the mortgage insurance industry much, according to a new report from FBR Capital Markets.

Housing production took a sharp and sudden decline in the nation's most populous state in July, posting the lowest level of permits since January 2009.

The percentage of early defaults on FHA-insured loans originated by MortgageIT “skyrocketed” after it was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 2007, according to an amended complaint filed by New York U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

The Kislak Organization's re-entry into the residential mortgage business is kaput.

The Obama administration is finally realizing that a major refinancing program to help troubled borrowers could help stabilize the housing market and give the economy a jolt—and it would be particularly effective if it reaches an estimated 11 million underwater mortgagors.

Freddie Mac's fraud investigation unit is reaching out to Realtor associations and real estate agents to educate them about how to prevent fraudulent short-sale activities from taking place.

A new integration into the Mortgage Builder loan origination system allows users to order CoreLogic income verification services directly from the LOS.

A Freddie Mac Reference Bills auction delayed Friday in anticipation of Hurricane Irene moved forward Monday morning as the weather cleared and mortgage-related securities markets opened on schedule.

Overture Technologies sold its mortgage division to CompuGain Corp., in a deal announced Monday.

The National Association of Realtors' leading indicator of future home sales slipped 1.3% in July, after rising the two previous months, which does not bode well for closings in August and September.

The Government National Mortgage Association said late Friday that it is expanding the parameters for loans to be repurchased from its trusts to include those that have successfully completed a three-month trial payment period.

There are a lot of reasons for mortgage bankers to expand in today's market, even though it means that a certain degree of consolidation is inevitable as long as recovery remains elusive.

This month is the conclusion of the “Dentist Diaries,” my journey through pain for better customer service. In last month's article, I left off just as I was dismissing the infamous dentist. Today I want to roll back a few days prior to that dismissal to give you some of the back-story.

A rare public rebuke of a rogue attorney general by his colleagues has highlighted the dysfunction among the state AGs and raised doubts about their ability to strike a settlement deal with the nation's largest mortgage servicers.