Mortgages

A former top regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wants to abandon the development of the common securitization platform and use the existing Ginnie Mae platform to issue government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities.

Restoring consumer confidence in financial services won't be easy after the latest banking brouhaha, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can help by proactively holding all mortgage loan officers to the same federal licensing standard.

Strong home sales are boosting originations of Federal Housing Administration loans and opening the door for first-time buyers — developments that could portend the mortgage insurance agency receiving a positive report from auditors this fall.

BB&T Corp. has agreed to pay $83 million to settle a Department of Justice investigation over loans that failed quality control tests but were still insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

Community bankers are showing renewed interest in consumer lending but admit they may be losing ground to more tech-savvy players, according to a survey released Thursday.

The Federal Housing Administration issued a proposal Tuesday that would make it easier for lenders to secure government guarantees for condominium loans.

The bad-news stories about the largest institutions are worrisome in light of housing finance proposals that could benefit the big banks even more.

Both government-sponsored enterprises discount the rates on loans for buildings with "green" certifications; they also underwrite some of the projected savings from upgrades on buildings of a certain age, allowing owners to take out bigger loans.

Fannie Mae employees will be working this weekend to update the agency's automated underwriting machine to process trended data for the first time.

Banks are dumping their mortgage servicing rights because low rates and new rules make it hard to earn a profit. SunTrust, Flagstar and First South Bancorp in North Carolina are taking the opposite view.

The high volume of commercial mortgages maturing this year has left some property owners scrambling for funds to refinance. Not so for these eight landlords, who took advantage of the strong price appreciation of their iconic office buildings, luxury hotels, super regional shopping malls, and a portfolio of rental homes, to cash out — in some cases, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of equity. Bank commercial real estate lenders, who know all too well the cyclical nature of this sector, will want to take a close look at these transactions, details courtesy of our colleagues at Asset Securitization Report.

Contrary to expectations about growing mortgage lending volumes, current industry trends suggest a gradual reduction in capacity for both lending and servicing that should alarm policymakers.

A top CFPB official said Monday that lenders have adjusted their business models and practices to comply with new rules, while MBA CEO David Stevens called on the Federal Housing Administration to clarify its underwriting standards.

Steve Eisman, who profited from the mortgage meltdown, tells an industry crowd why he thinks the financial system is safer under Dodd-Frank, why Silicon Valley is "clueless" about lending and what the next "big short" will be.

Bankers may have a reputation for being old-school, but their rapidly growing digital-ad budgets are in step with the rest of the business world. Banks can both gather valuable demographic data from who clicks on their ads and better measure returns on their investments.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can determine nearly anything to be an unfair, deceptive or abusive act or practice, and it's more likely to do so when lenders try to take advantage of regulatory loopholes.