Risk

Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, said he's added "meaningfully" to his bets on U.S. mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the past two weeks.

The deal resolved claims relating to the underwriting and servicing of loans in more than 300 residential mortgage-backed securitization trusts.

Ocwen Financial came under fire from Joseph A. Smith, the monitor of the national mortgage settlement, after concerns of conflicts of interest were raised by an unnamed whistleblower.

In a speech last May, Edward DeMarco declared these truths to be self-evident: "Restoring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not the solution. They failed and their business model failed. Going backwards to an obviously failed model cannot be dressed up with some promise of higher capital or explicit rather than implicit guarantees."

Mortgage fraud remains a national problem as loan applications have seen misrepresentations increase on an annual basis for three consecutive years, according to LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

Lenders concerned about maintaining vendor oversight compliance may require title insurance and settlement firms to adopt the American Land Title Association's quality standards, even though the industry guidelines are only voluntary.

More than 1.8 million Americans have sought help keeping their homes from the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program. Hundreds of thousands more still need help, according to the program's administrator.

While evolving market conditions have made retaining servicing rights more attractive to independent mortgage bankers, making the right choice between an in-house operation or engaging with a subservicer is critical to the new business line's success.

HUD officials had taken a neutral position on whether FHA financing would be available for loans that were seized by cities and written down to their current appraised value.

Commercial mortgage-backed securities risk as measured by an index of underwriting and macroeconomic variables is up 11 points from 2013. That's still below its 2007 level, a researcher noted Thursday.

A bankruptcy court judge sunk investors' hopes in their latest lawsuit against Lehman Brothers, which they claim broke contracts in junk mortgage-backed securities sold during the bubble years.

There's little point to Fannie and Freddie's large profits if that money is remitted to the Treasury rather than making the GSEs more financially stable.

Fannie Mae, risk sharing, private capital, reinsurers.

Funding for housing counseling represents a minuscule fraction of total spending on housing-related initiatives. Still, some question whether taxpayers are getting the best bang for their buck.

Many professionals in the mortgage industry are paying close attention to the non-QM market to see if it will indeed provide a path back to subprime loans of the past.

With some proposals still outstanding, mortgage bond market participants are concerned that eminent domain attempts would spread if a municipality makes inroads with a proposal.

Generally, advertising cost should be split pro rata based upon the amount of advertising space each party uses under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, but more complicated issues arise.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's support for the widow of a home equity conversion mortgage borrower has broad implications for consumers and lenders.