Housing

Estimates of nonbank mortgage providers that will close or change hands should worry consumers and policymakers about access to credit.

Radian Guaranty is the latest private mortgage insurer to announce a change to its pricing structure for borrower-paid policies.

Redwood Trust is "repositioning" its mortgage business by focusing mainly on jumbo loans, according to its top executives.

Understanding how consumers pay their debts over time is expected to widen access to credit for consumers recovering from financial problems or who were hard to score before. Just how many it will benefit is an open debate.

WASHINGTON — Despite dire predictions by banks and others that new mortgage rules by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would cut off access to credit, the industry is performing well two years after the regulations went into effect, according to the agency's top official.

Meaningful rules encouraging Fannie and Freddie to do more with manufactured housing would allow more lenders into the market and make pricing more competitive.

The affordable housing market has dried up in major cities across the country. In response, regulators and lenders are looking into new programs to get people back into single-family homes while also exploring ways to encourage multifamily developments.

The Treasury Department will invest an additional $2 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program into a federal fund that seeks to protect homeowners from foreclosure.

Bank of America will launch a 3% down payment home loan in partnership with Freddie Mac, but will not retain any risk if the loans default. That’s because B of A will immediately will sell the loans and servicing rights to Self-Help Federal Credit Union, a Durham, N.C., community development lender.

The government-sponsored enterprise was enthusiastic about launching the 97% loan-to-value product when it announced it in December 2014. But it has yet to become a sizable part of Fannie's business.