Housing

WASHINGTON — The House voted 303 to 121 on Wednesday to pass a bill that would delay enforcement of new mortgage disclosures that went into effect on Oct. 3.

The clash between the Department of Housing and Urban Development and its inspector general over down payment assistance programs run by state or local housing finance agencies continues to heat up.

Despite their major push to overhaul the housing finance market last Congress, Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., offered little optimism Tuesday that structural reform is on its way anytime soon.

An initiative underway at Freddie Mac seeks to integrate new and existing technology to create a comprehensive suite of quality control tools designed to help lenders manage their mortgage repurchase risks.

If we can't identify adequate capital to bear mortgage credit losses when they are incurred, aren't we setting ourselves up for another series of bailouts in the next housing downturn?

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is planning to issue a final rule in the next 12 months to require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to better serve underserved markets, including manufactured housing, the agency said Thursday.

A bipartisan group of housing experts is seeking to inject more discussion about the mortgage market into presidential campaigns.

The most recent outcry came from four housing groups that warned lawmakers last week that the proposal by the Federal Housing Finance Agency "would make harmful changes" to the FHLB membership rules.

It's hard to decide which is more surprising: that the largest U.S. bank has almost abandoned the business of making home loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, that lots of big banks could be right behind it, or that the FHA might not even need to care.

Officials signaled that Hudson City Savings Bank's nearly $33 million settlement over redlining charges is only the first in what is likely to be a string of other cases.