Securitization

Almost seven years after the financial crisis, bond investors are rediscovering their appetite for new debt tied to the housing market.

Freddie Mac is planning its fifth risk-sharing transaction of the year.

California Gov. Jerry Brown violated state law by diverting more than $331 million in mortgage settlement funds for uses unrelated to housing, a Superior Court judge ruled.

Radian Group in Philadelphia began a sale of $300 million in senior notes.

Community West Bancshares in Goleta, Calif., said that a litigation settlement concerning its sale of residential-mortgage loans will reduce its second-quarter profit.

Transactions involving residential mortgage-backed securities should include a manager to improve accountability, Fitch Ratings has recommended.

Life insurers increased their rate of investment in mortgages in 2014, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

Redwood Trust's latest residential mortgage securitization, Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2015-3, is backed by a slightly larger percentage of loans that fall outside of new ability-to-repay rules.

New York's highest court may have shut the door to many future lawsuits over flawed mortgage bonds, ruling investors have six years from the day the deal closed to pursue remedies.

A bipartisan group of Senate Banking Committee members is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to make risk-sharing a higher priority for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie and Freddie should offer upfront risk-sharing options in order to give lenders an opportunity to lower their guarantee fees while encouraging more private capital and competition to flow into the secondary mortgage market.

The New York City Housing Development Corp. board approved a $680 million inaugural sustainable neighborhood bond transaction, expected to price next week.

Invitation Homes, a subsidiary of Blackstone Group, is back with its third single-family rental securitization of the year.

Cerberus Capital Management is buying about 4,200 U.S. houses, expanding its foray into home rentals in the industry's largest bulk purchase.

Small banks and nonbank lenders are originating commercial mortgages with lower credit quality than the loans originated by large banks, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

Securities issuers are increasingly worried that risk-retention requirements could hinder efforts to broaden the types of loans securitized through the private-label market as implementation for the new regulation nears.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is in talks to pay $2 billion to $3 billion to settle a probe into its sales of mortgage bonds leading up to the financial crisis, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.

Ratings agency Fitch took a cautious approach to the residential mortgage-backed securities market in its latest report on the sector.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. won a round in a long- running dispute with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., avoiding some of the liabilities tied to its 2008 takeover of Washington Mutual Inc.'s banking operations.

Rep. Edward Royce, R-Calif., urged fellow House members Wednesday to support a Senate proposal that would make significant reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.