Kate Berry

The backlog of real estate-owned homes held by banks and the government is "staggering," Fitch Inc. said this week, and the disposal of those distressed properties in the next two years will depend largely on the strategies taken by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Mortgage industry members are applauding Congressional efforts to raise the guarantee fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge lenders, saying the fee increases could help bring private investors back into the mortgage market.

Bank of America's proposed $315 million settlement with mortgage-securities investors will have to be approved by Judge Jed Rakoff, who last week blocked a Citigroup settlement with the SEC over securities-related claims.

Small but profitable Wedbush Bank, a sister company of Wedbush Securities, is the rare example of a thriving bank linked to a brokerage firm. Now the bank is looking to expand by scouting for an acquisition along the West Coast.

Government officials are likely to release large banks from some liability for how they handled delinquent Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages, as part of a settlement with the largest mortgage servicers, according to people briefed on the negotiations.

Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp. and other large lenders are fleeing the reverse mortgage industry, leaving specialty lenders with more business than they know what to do with.

Government-issued payment cards can be fraught with peril, provoking the ire of unemployed and disabled consumers and their advocates, who are increasingly sensitive to being charged bank fees of any kind.

It's a sign of the dismal state of the housing market that a combined $14 billion bailout in the third quarter for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac no longer merits front-page headlines.

The foreclosure review process mandated by a federal consent order is turning out to be far more punitive and costly than banks and mortgage servicers initially thought, industry sources say.

Bank of America's latest management shake-up is all about increasing "customer share," says home loan sales exec Matthew Vernon. It wants to capture more of the 86% of B of A clients who go elsewhere for mortgages. Sound familiar?

Bank of America Corp. reshuffled top retail bank executives yet again this week, according to an internal memo obtained by American Banker.

Bank of America Corp., once the nation's largest residential mortgage lender, has dropped to third place, defeating the original purpose of its ill-fated takeover of Countrywide Financial Corp.

Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. have adopted two very different strategies to try to overcome an uncertain economy, increasing regulations and a prolonged slowdown in Wall Street activity — but as their third-quarter results showed on Monday, neither bank has found a foolproof solution.

Beneath the San Francisco bank's higher profits lie lower net interest margins, thanks in part to a double-digit increase in deposits.

In less than a year, the insurance giant has gone from aiming for the top five in home lending to putting its origination business on the block.

Zombie mortgages, or home loans that are worth more than the underlying collateral of the house, are impeding a recovery in home sales and in the broader economy, according to Barclays Capital chief economist Dean Maki.

New York's largest foreclosure law firm agreed last week to pay $2 million as part of a settlement over questionable foreclosure practices with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Private lenders, never a big part of the student loan market, have exited in droves over the past few years. Now some analysts are warning that new potential legislation and an increasing wave of defaults could drive out the last few holdouts.

Irene Dorner, president and chief executive of HSBC's U.S. bank, is looking beyond the sales of her credit cards business and 195 upstate New York branches and planning to expand HSBC's operations in California and the West Coast.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should ease restrictions on sales of foreclosed properties and let individual investors buy up to 50 each, says Lewis S. Ranieri.