Mortgages

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is taking a harder look at how mortgage lenders treat borrowers with limited English language skills.

PNC Financial Services Group plans to increase consumer lending with its current tilt toward commercial loans generating lower overall loan yields.

Provident Financial Holdings in Riverside, Calif., has restated earnings from its most-recent quarter after it booked higher loan-origination costs.

A fintech startup called Point is allowing consumers sell a piece of their home equity to investors, rather than borrowing against the value of their houses.

While troubling factors such as higher risk profiles may be behind the recent lending boom, the industry could also just be returning to the historical average for loan growth following the "Great Panic" of 2008-2010.

Home purchase lending hit its highest point since 2007 as low interest rates and growing consumer confidence continue to support the housing market.

Orrstown Financial Services in Shippensburg, Pa., has hired three former rivals from Metro Bank in Harrisburg: Adam Metz, Andrew Johnson and Doug Hummer.

Within five years, a dramatic transformation of the mortgage market will force firms to expand product menus beyond mortgages to develop stronger relationships with their customers.

A rising number of banks are looking to become community development financial institutions, emboldened by low-cost capital and an exemption from the ability-to-repay rule.

Though the Federal Housing Finance Agency has yet to provide full details about its new refinancing program to be launched next year, some analysts and industry observers are already convinced it will have only a limited impact.

Regulatory infighting over bond loans offered by down payment assistance programs has the potential to curtail lending to first-time buyers and do real damage to homeownership.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can still manage their risk exposure even after reducing or eliminating "loan level price adjustment" fees.

Emboldened by supportive comments from presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, community development banks are asking regulators for more leniency in areas such as disclosure fees and Bank Secrecy Act enforcement.

The slow start to Fifth Third's 3%-down mortgage illustrates some of the logistical challenges with such programs, which are on the rise across the industry.

The Mortgage Bankers Association has long been a staunch defender of the mortgage interest deduction. But the group's president and CEO now says he's open to Congress reducing, or even eliminating, the tax break.

The National Association of Realtors is urging policymakers to implement reforms meant to qualify more condominium buyers for Federal Housing Administration loans.

Plenty of banks have ended their federal loss-share deals early, but despite the incentives to wind them down, plenty more still have these crisis-era arrangements in place. It may be due to varying deadlines, mistakes calculating loan values or worries that they still might need the coverage for home equity lines.

Former Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Co. Chairman and Chief Executive William Lacy Jr. died Sunday from respiratory failure. He was 71.

Many lenders are still reluctant to give mortgages to borrowers with less-than-pristine credit, yet such loans are far more likely than prime jumbo loans to be bundled into collateral bonds. Sreeni Prabhu of Angel Oak Capital credits banks' behavior and higher interest rates for that reality.

Equifax and TransUnion have stopped selling traditional credit reports, forcing lenders to buy their new, more expensive "trended" data reports that mortgage investors aren't using yet.