MORTGAGE

The Federal Reserve scored a victory and mortgage bankers suffered a defeat on Wednesday as the U.S. Senate took aim at bank supervision and housing finance in its sprawling Wall Street reform effort.

U.S. mortgage applications rose last week, reflecting a jump in demand for home refinancing loans as interest rates reached their lowest level since mid-March, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

Federal Reserve officials have agreed to sell some of the central bank's $1.1 trillion portfolio of mortgage-backed securities, but many are undecided on how soon or how aggressively to do so, the Wall Street Journal said, citing several people familiar with the matter.

Having shunned U.S. mortgage-related assets for 1-1/2 years, foreign investors are returning to the market now the U.S. government has a key stake.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday slammed mortgage service companies for failing to do enough to help Americans avoid losing their homes and promised to crack down on shoddy practices.

Foreclosure activity fell in 14 of the top 20 U.S. metropolitan areas in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, even though total U.S. foreclosures rose, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Foreclosure activity fell in 14 of the top 20 U.S. metropolitan areas in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, even though total U.S. foreclosures rose, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Deutsche Bank faces a U.S. class-action lawsuit over mortgage-related securities it helped arrange, Germany's biggest lender said in its first-quarter report.

A state judge in Florida has ruled against U.S. Bank N.A. which filed a lawsuit against Ernest Harpster when the homeowner defaulted on a loan that he supposedly received in January 2007.

U.S. mortgage applications bounced from three-month lows last week as potential buyers locked in lower borrowing costs before the federal tax credit expires, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.

The Obama administration should consider forcing lenders to make principal reductions for struggling homeowners who owe more than their home is worth, the watchdog overseeing the $700 billion bank bailout.

U.S. mortgage rates have fallen for the first time in five weeks, retreating from an eight-month high and remaining near historically low levels, a closely watched mortgage survey showed on Thursday.

U.S. mortgage foreclosure filings dropped for a second straight month in February, and notched the smallest annual increase in four years as housing-rescue efforts contained activity, a report released on Thursday showed.

U.S. home foreclosures actions spiked in March and set a quarterly record despite federal programs to combat the unrelenting pace that homeowners are defaulting on mortgages, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

On March 17, 2009, a group of mortgage bond investors worried about the losses they could suffer as a result of U.S. foreclosure prevention plans asked top bankers to share the pain by taking some write-downs on $450 billion in home equity loans.

Sales of foreclosed or other distressed homes are flirting with the peaks of the housing crisis in early 2009 when heavy inventory was pressuring home prices lower, according to First American CoreLogic.

Rising bond yields sent U.S. 30-year mortgage rates to the highest level in eight months on the brink of the important spring sales season, data from home funding company Freddie Mac showed on Thursday.

U.S. mortgage rates spiked last week, slashing refinancing demand, while requests for home purchase loans held steady amid a final rush for federal tax credits, Mortgage Bankers Association data showed on Wednesday.

Two real estate brokers, three lawyers and five others were charged with fraudulently obtaining more than $10 million in home loans from American Home Mortgage Investment Corp and BNC Mortgage, a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, U.S. prosecutors in New York said on Tuesday.

U.S. mortgage insurers' stocks have touched new year-highs on confidence about success of the government's plan to let homeowners keep their homes, but the big question is how much steam the rally has left.

The double-whammy of rising Treasury yields and the end of the Federal Reserve's $1.25 trillion mortgage-buying program could prove to be a buying opportunity for the biggest bond investors.