Kate Berry has covered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for American Banker since 2016. She joined the publication in 2006 covering mortgage lending and the financial crisis. Berry also has covered big banks including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. She has won five awards from the Society of American Business Writers and Editors, and has worked at several news organizations including the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Associated Press. Berry began her career as a clerk at the New York Times.
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GMAC employee who rubber-stamped foreclosures is immortalized in a slang dictionary; defaulted borrowers buy back homes they lost at discounts.
September 29 -
The Treasury Department singled out the three largest banks — Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. — for failing to properly solicit and consider homeowners for the government's loan modification program.
September 24 -
Fannie Mae again sweetened incentives for buyers of its repossessed homes Thursday, underscoring its motivation to clear inventory.
September 23 -
Observers say fallen home prices and evaporated equity mean that those borrowers who today are still paying their second mortgages on underwater properties may soon join the ranks of those who aren't.
September 17 -
For the last three years, private mortgage insurers have suffered two great woes: credit losses on policies written before the crisis and an inability to compete with Federal Housing Administration prices on new insurance.
September 15 -
"Borrowers are savvy now and they know that once they lose the house, they can milk the system for time and cash," said Peterson, a managing director at the Sacramento private-equity firm Praxis Capital Inc., a large buyer at trustee sales.
September 8 -
Fannie Mae wants out of its defaulted residential mortgage holdings as quickly as possible and is warning loan servicers not to stand in its way.
September 1 -
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will require homeowners with "green energy" loans from municipalities to pay them off when refinancing their mortgages — unless the borrowers don't have enough equity, in which case the green liens can stay.
August 31 -
The refusal to foreclose quickly on and sell distressed homes at inventory-clearing prices may be contributing to the stall of the overall market seen in July sales data.
August 26 -
New regulations will soon restrict a common way of compensating residential mortgage brokers and loan officers. But those sales representatives still have to be paid somehow, and far more may change than simply commission structures.
August 26 -
Finding bad eggs, in the mortgage industry and in the fridge; the foreclosed-mansion squatters in Seattle strike again; and more.
August 25 -
It took just one sentence in the 2,300-page financial reform law to end federal preemption for mortgage lenders that operate as subsidiaries of national banks.
August 20 -
Fannie Mae has narrowed the circumstances under which home lenders must reunderwrite applications submitted by borrowers who take on other debts before the mortgage closes.
August 15 -
A surge of refinancings at record low interest rates today could mean a dearth of homebuyers applying for mortgages tomorrow.
August 13 -
A surge of refinancings at record low interest rates today could mean a dearth of homebuyers applying for mortgages tomorrow.
August 13 -
During the boom years, mortgage lenders paid Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a small fee for accepting stated-income loans. Today those lenders are paying a whole lot more.
August 12 -
The high cost of short sale fraud; Hamp has helped stabilize home prices, but for how much longer? And more.
August 11 -
The Federal Housing Administration's third program in two years to help troubled borrowers refinance into more affordable mortgages is likely to do better than its predecessors — but that is a low bar to set.
August 10 -
Loan modifications are still hurting borrowers' credit scores, but regulators and legislators say people's participation in such programs should end their delinquent status.
August 6 -
Mortgage rates fell to fresh lows this week as the average rate on a 30-year home loan fell to 4.49% for the week that ended Aug. 5, from 4.54% a week earlier, according to a weekly survey released Thursday by Freddie Mac.
August 5
