Reverse mortgages

The Department of Housing and Urban Development will remove some barriers to government-insured condominium lending next month, including a post-crisis measure housing industry groups have long complained about.

Steeper rate declines contributed to a deeper quarterly net loss at Ocwen Financial, forcing it to extend its timeline for returning to profitability.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is monitoring how the bankrupt Ditech Holding Corp. handles borrower-sensitive issues like foreclosure proceedings, and is backing the involvement of a consumer creditors' committee.

The bank is siding with a growing list of groups, including the U.S. trustee, attorneys general from several states and consumers, who object to Ditech's plan to sell its reverse mortgage business.

Liberty Home Equity, a subsidiary of Ocwen Financial, is offering a new private-market alternative to Federal Housing Administration-insured reverse mortgages.

The more than $44 billion in new Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities that came to market in June marked the strongest month for the government bond insurer in more than two years.

After hiring half the laid-off staff from Live Well Financial, Open Mortgage plans to engineer a careful transition to operating as a larger-scale business.

Live Well Financial's creditors are seeking a court-supervised bankruptcy, but the mortgage lender is opposing the move, saying it can get more for certain assets if it sells them before filing.

Ditech Holding Corp. has entered into purchase agreements with New Residential Investment Corp. and Mortgage Assets Management, in which each would acquire certain assets in the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Roughly 50 of the more than 100 staff members Live Well Financial let go after it stopped funding loans will join Open Mortgage, a multichannel lender in expansion mode.