Mortgages

Arch U.S. MI's acquisition of United Guaranty Corp. will make one of the smallest private mortgage insurers the sector's new market leader. While the move is likely to ease pricing competition among the six remaining players, it's not expected to set off a wave of further consolidation.

Some observers are concerned that borrowers in energy-dependent regions, in an effort to compensate for pay cuts, are becoming overleveraged. But lenders say they are being prudent.

Mortgage servicers got what they asked for when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau limited the specificity of certain requirements in its final servicing rule. Now they may regret it.

A Federal Housing Finance Agency rule that will force some members of the Federal Home Loan Bank System out next year is likely to have a material effect on several of the cooperative institutions.

Mortgage lenders can expand their businesses by catering to borrowers who aren't proficient in English, but doing so requires strategic recruiting and hiring and compliance with federal and state regulations.

Roger Ferguson is hedging his bet that regulators will go along with his plan to turn TIAA into a financial supermarket.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP failed to spot for seven years a multibillion-dollar fraud that led to the demise of Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., a lawyer for the lender's bankruptcy trustee told a Miami jury on Tuesday.

The Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development has found a new ally in his fight to reform the down payment assistance programs run by HUD and state and local housing finance agencies.

By buying EverBank Financial, the insurance and retirement savings behemoth will gain billions of dollars in low-cost deposits and access to many new lending products that it can offer to millions of clients.

The biggest change in banking in the last 60 years is the shift in balance sheets from business lending to real estate finance and therefore more risk tied to volatile real estate prices.

Regions Financial, Alabama's biggest bank, reached a preliminary agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve an investigation into mortgage abuses.

Independent mortgage banking and brokerage firms added a whopping 5,900 fulltime employees to their payrolls in June, according to a report issued Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Settlements related to court fights over private-label mortgage-backed securities are significantly boosting the bottom lines at a few Federal Home Loan banks.

Returning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to their status as privately owned public utilities is consistent with their mandate and makes the most policy sense.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has signed a housing reform bill that will open the door for welfare recipients to use federal rent vouchers to purchase manufactured homes and become homeowners.

Benefiting from higher loan guarantee income and lower derivative losses, Freddie Mac said Tuesday it had made $993 million in the second quarter, a dramatic reversal from its $354 million loss a quarter earlier.

The private equity firm GTCR is interested in fintech companies looking to disrupt the status quo, so long as they have proved themselves and are paired with managers who have a long track record of success.

The Federal Housing Administration is promoting a particular kind of financing for residential energy retrofits that another regulator staunchly opposes. Mortgage lenders and investors have qualms, too, about the impact on their standing in collateral claims.

Iberiabank in Lafayette, La., neutralized the energy issues common to Gulf region lenders these days with a one-two punch of stronger fee income and robust, more profitable lending.

President Obama called for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be eliminated, but Democratic policymakers attending the convention in Philadelphia appear resigned to the fact that Congress is unable to act on housing finance reform.