Secondary markets

Standard & Poor's raised the Chicago Housing Authority's issuer credit rating one notch to AA following criteria changes.

Homebuilders remain optimistic that a housing recovery will continue to take shape this year.

While private-equity firms snap up foreclosed homes in California, Arizona and Florida, smaller investors have found bargain-basement bonanzas in Detroit.

He calls the law tightening oversight of Wall Street among the most “harmful our capital markets have seen,” while she has compared bankers to gangsters.

Purchase applications have risen to the their highest level since April 2011.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency will have a new deputy director who left the FDIC to head its division of housing mission and goals.

Walter Investment Management Corp. is looking for a $475 million incremental financing facility to pay the initial installments on the $93 billion Fannie Mae mortgage servicing rights portfolio it is buying from Bank of America.

Beech Street Capital closed an $11.3 million Fannie Mae conventional loan for the acquisition of the Carriage House and Coach House Apartments in the Boston area.

It’s becoming clear that investments based on the backlog of discount assets won’t last forever and investors need to be prepared for it.

Farmer Mac has priced a preferred stock offering which will raise $60 million in Tier 1 capital.

Carrington Mortgage Services plans to begin offering the Federal Housing Administration’s streamline 203(k) loans through its retail business as well as a brokered product.

As the winter months take hold in which home prices are known to plummet, the cold weather has so far not dampened prices.

Concerns are growing that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are rethinking their loan buyback policies in light of the qualified mortgage rule that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued last week.

Billionaire Leonard Blavatnik accused JPMorgan Chase & Co. of losing 10% of the $1 billion he gave the bank to manage by making unauthorized investments in subprime mortgages.

Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities issuance edged down slightly in December after hitting a three-year high in November.

Fannie Mae has released its first round of monthly loan-level disclosure data for single-family mortgage backed securities as part of its broader LLD initiative.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finally issued the long-awaited qualified mortgage rule and it shows the new agency can be flexible and creative at times.

What’s old is new again on Wall Street as banks tap into soaring demand for commercial real estate debt by selling collateralized debt obligations, securities not seen since the last boom.

The transaction introduces EverBank as a significant contributor to the collateral pool.

As we approach 2013 it is safe to say that a New Mortgage Industry continues to emerge.