Secondary markets

Standard & Poor's $1.5 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, more than a dozen states and the biggest U.S. pension fund today will let the world's biggest rating company move beyond a bruising legal battle, at a steep cost.

President Obama's 2016 budget plan tackled a host of big picture items for mortgages, including Dodd-Frank reform, FHA lending and GSE reform.

Government-backed U.S. mortgage bonds posted their worst monthly returns relative to Treasuries since the 2008 financial crisis as the $5.5 trillion market braces for a surge in homeowner refinancing.

Fannie Mae provided $28.9 billion in financing to the multifamily market last year that supported 446,000 housing units.

JPMorgan and Barclays plan to securitize 44 commercial mortgage loans that total $836.5 million. The loans are secured by 91 properties.

The Internal Revenue Service recently closed two audits of bonds issued in Colorado with no change to the bonds' tax-exempt statuses.

Stability is gradually returning to the housing market following the foreclosure crisis, according to Freddie Mac.

TCF Financial took $44 million in charges to rid itself of mortgages made before the housing collapse. A distressed-asset investor purchased more than $400 million in loans from the company, and another pool of bad mortgages may be marked for sale soon.

Freddie Mac priced its first Structured Agency Credit Risk transaction of the year. The Series 2015-DN1 was upsized to $880 million from $775 million originally.

Mortgage interest rates rose by three basis points compared with the previous week, the first time there has been an increase since the last week of December, according to Freddie Mac.

Regulatory attention is supposed to be laser-focused on servicers right now, especially when it comes to how consistent they are in applying workouts. So regulators should be looking closely at whether loans have forbearance.

A judge rejected a bid by the U.S. to put on hold a series of suits by Fairholme Funds and other investors challenging the diversion of profits from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to the Treasury.

Joining the hunt for higher-yielding niche loans, the asset management unit of NewOak Capital has quietly launched a private fund to acquire nonqualified residential mortgages.

Societe Generale is entering the U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities market and has hired a team of more than 10 people from Royal Bank of Scotland Group for the effort.

Aiming to address a nationwide shortage of affordable housing, FHA has launched a risk-sharing pilot program that it hopes will encourage community development lenders to finance the rehabilitation of smaller multifamily apartments.

Lenders could save time and money by offering homeowners the opportunity to finance the purchase of a rooftop solar system into a new mortgage.

Arch Capital Group is repurposing a subsidiary to insure mortgages that are headed for private securitizations. Insuring such loans separately from the unit that works with Fannie and Freddie lets Arch offer more favorable terms to lenders.

The business of bundling riskier U.S. mortgages into bonds without government backing is gearing up for a comeback. Just don't call it subprime.

With conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac well into its seventh year, the government has now had control of the housing agencies longer than 47 members of the Senate have been office.

Progress Residential priced its second securitization of single-family rental properties.