Industries

Julian Castro, secretary of housing and urban development, said 2015 will be a year of "housing opportunity" as the economy continues its rebound.

The federal government's recent decisions to lower annual premiums for new borrowers and reduce down payment requirements suggest it has little interest in making room for private capital in the mortgage market.

In a State of the Union address declaring that “the shadow of crisis has passed,” President Obama said he will veto efforts to roll back financial reforms further while he reiterated support for a bill addressing cyber threats.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized tweaks to a mortgage disclosure rule set to take effect later this year.

While put-backs and litigation risk are widely recognized as factors that have contributed to tight credit conditions, another factor — high servicing costs for nonperforming loans — is being overlooked.

A federal agency's plan to tighten membership rules for Federal Home Loan banks would hurt community banks and credit unions — and could endanger the financial system, according to a broad array of stakeholders, including state regulators, lawmakers and institutions.

Mortgage application volume experienced the largest week-over-week gain in more than six years, but despite the FHA's announced cuts to insurance premiums, interest in conventional loans was greater.

Capital markets hold the key to the future for the consolidating Wall Street landlords, but the path through is downright bloody.

Lenders and homebuyers should not expect further reductions in Federal Housing Administration's mortgage insurance premiums this year, according to Housing and Urban Development secretary Julian Castro.

Fears that lower Federal Housing Administration premiums will negatively affect private mortgage insurance firms are overblown. If anything, the plan should be a modest positive for the overall housing market.

The Supreme Court gave homeowners more ability to cancel their mortgages if lenders don't provide the required disclosures, in a setback for the banking industry.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is launching a toolkit on Tuesday that will help consumers shop for a mortgage by finding the best rates in their area based on data the agency gathers from lenders.

Freddie Mac in the next month plans to approve three more lenders, including one bank, to make multifamily loans between $1 million and $5 million for GSE purchase and securitization, according to an official. Banks were not initially courted.

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."

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.

WASHINGTON — Lenders are moving too quickly to return to the loose underwriting standards that caused the housing crisis, according to a report released Tuesday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt's decision Thursday to stand up the affordable housing trust funds sharply divided lawmakers along party lines, with Democrats welcoming the decision as overdue while Republicans denounced it as a mistake.

After a six-year delay, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will finally begin setting aside a portion of their revenues to fund the development of rental housing for low-income families.

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.