Although there are signs that the clouds may be lifting over the five-year housing recession, mortgage lenders face unrelenting pressure from investors to repurchase loans or cover their losses. Some buyback requests are legitimate and should be honored, said David Stevens, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, during a speech at the trade group’s secondary market conference in New York this week. “But lenders are finding more and more loans being sent back for repurchase for minor, technical mistakes that had questionable relevance to loan performance,” he said. The threat of repurchases...