Mortgages

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro moved swiftly on Thursday to defend pending cuts to the Federal Housing Administration's premiums, rebutting GOP arguments they are premature.

Lenda, a new mortgage company backed by Silicon Valley investors, wants to supplant the traditional loan officer with consumer self-service technology.

Home values have risen fastest in markets where institutional buyers bought up scores of foreclosed homes and then rented them out. But these investor have largely curtailed their buying, and may even be ready to start selling off more properties to profit from the run-up in home prices. That could be good news for first-time buyers.

Mortgage denials in 2013 were comparable to those recorded a decade ago, analyses of HMDA data show, challenging perceptions about how easy lending really was during the era of "pulse" loans and "fog-a-mirror finance."

An index of late-payment rates hit a record low in the third quarter, as consumer spent less to fill their gas tanks.

President Obama is expected to announce a half-percentage-point reduction in the Federal Housing Administration's annual premium during a housing policy speech Thursday in Phoenix.

Investors' demands that the country's biggest bank produce better earnings amid costlier regulations are prompting fresh cries to break up JPMorgan Chase.

SunTrust Banks will provision $145 million in its fourth-quarter results for legal expenses related to previously disclosed mortgage issues, the company said in a regulatory filing Monday.

Ocwen Financial, operating under a settlement with New York's banking regulator that restricts its servicing portfolio acquisitions, is looking at its old private-label mortgage securities as a new profit center.

Federal regulators formally issued a final risk retention rule for mortgage securitizations, a long-awaited and hotly debated measure that is nevertheless expected to have little market impact when it takes effect a year from now.

The 3%-down payment mortgage has been made available to consumers with a speed rarely seen in this business, in large part because more lenders than ever are selling loans directly to Fannie and Freddie.

The $4 trillion in mortgages serviced by the largest financial institutions slightly improved in the third quarter with more loans back in performing status and fewer in serious delinquency, a regulatory report said Friday.

A federal monitor is investigating whether Ocwen Financial is treating borrowers fairly after a whistleblower said the company may have improperly influenced which mortgages were picked for a compliance review.

A bankruptcy court judge sunk investors' hopes in their latest lawsuit against Lehman Brothers, which they claim broke contracts in junk mortgage-backed securities sold during the bubble years.

John Grayken, the billionaire who made his fortune betting on troubled borrowers, has joined the bidding for Citigroup's subprime-lending arm, OneMain Financial, people familiar with the matter said.

With some proposals still outstanding, mortgage bond market participants are concerned that eminent domain attempts would spread if a municipality makes inroads with a proposal.

Officials at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae all heaped praise on nonbank mortgage lenders for stepping up to provide loans for home purchases at a time when many banks have scaled back.

Borrowers who have made five years of payments on their modified loans will be eligible to earn $5,000 in the next year to reduce their outstanding balance.