Institutional investors have bought as many as 200,000 U.S. properties in the last two years, taking advantage of real estate prices that fell as much as a third from the 2006 peak, and rising demand for rentals among Americans who lost their houses in the foreclosure crisis.

Mortgage rates for 30-year loans increased for the first time in six weeks as the two-year-old housing recovery showed signs of slowing.

The Green Lender Award acknowledges a lender that uses technology to promote sustainable and environmentally conscious business practices in the mortgage industry. Learn about this year's finalists and see who won the 2013 MT Award.

Mortgage applications fell 2% for the week ended Feb. 7, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The single-family mortgage delinquency rate has been declining for eight straight quarters and it ended 2013 at the lowest level since 2008.

Centralized databases inside the loan origination system provide an efficient way to comply with the Qualified Mortgage requirements and more efficiently use loan information from origination to servicing and securitization.

After the Federal Reserve announced in December that it would begin tapering purchases of mortgage-backed securities, all the major housing forecasters said rates would jump this quarter.

An ad campaign begun by the Federal Housing Finance Agency may come too late to boost refinancings by underwater borrowers with loans owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new notification requirements for property valuations have rekindled old debates over appraisal alternatives and are expected to add costs alongside yet another layer of mortgage litigation risk.

Life insurers have gotten burned in commercial lending before, but spectacular credit performance is reinforcing their persistent love of the niche.

Prices for single-family homes rose in 73% of cities in the fourth quarter, fewer than in the previous three months, as surging values in the past two years started to reduce affordability.

Thousands of eligible GSE borrowers could benefit from the federal refinancing program, the Urban Institute estimates.

Banks are looking at a regulatory plan to dramatically expand the data collected on mortgages as a potential ally in their battle to ease separate rules that they say will curb access to credit.

The success of your mortgage origination business may very well depend on making changes to certain components of your operation.

Prepayment speeds fell to 12.4% from 13.7% on a consecutive-quarter basis, according to Sterne Agee analysts, who have raised their fiscal year 2015 estimate for Home Loan Servicing Solutions.

Residential builders boost hiring in January, which could be a good sign for housing market.

The bureau wants to expand data collection to detect troublesome trends and effectiveness of QM rule.

Freddie Mac plans this year to start regularly issuing the credit-linked notes it began using as a form of risk-sharing last year.

Acquiring the mortgage analytics vendor Interthinx would give First American more products and services to match its rival title insurer Fidelity National — and former subsidiary CoreLogic, spun off in 2010.

Housing boom-era mortgage securitizations, written off as "toxic waste" during the financial crisis, are performing better than investors once expected, thanks to the rebound in home prices.