Interactive Mortgage Advisors has launched RealPartner.com, a crowd funding platform giving accredited investors access to performing residential mortgages...

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt this week unveiled two significant policy changes aimed at opening up the mortgage credit box: additional buyback relief for originators that sell loans to the government-sponsored enterprises and a return to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchases of mortgages with loan-to-value ratios between 95 percent and 97 percent. Speaking at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association in Las Vegas, Watt gave some concrete details about the new “life of loan” representation and warranty relief and outlined a number of other changes in the works. Moreover, industry officials contend...

If Republicans take control of the U.S. Senate in the upcoming elections, Congress next year may actually produce some mortgage-related legislation, according to political analysts participating on a panel at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in Las Vegas this week. Any successful legislation will be narrowly targeted and not address complex problems like building a new mortgage finance system or resolving the status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, analysts agreed. Over the last four years, the Democrats’ top priority has been preserving...

An Iowa-based investor in government-sponsored enterprise common stock this week asked a federal court in the Hawkeye State to give “no weight” to a ruling earlier this month by a Washington, DC, federal judge who dismissed litigation against the government by other GSE shareholders, including Perry Capital and Fairholme Funds. Continental Western Insurance Co. filed papers in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa Central Division arguing that Judge Royce Lamberth was “simply wrong” in his interpretation of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and his HERA-based rationale to shut down shareholders’ suits in DC. An investor in GSE stock, Continental’s counsel in the case is...

High fees on FHA mortgages have helped push FHA’s market of financing for home purchases to the lowest level since the financial crisis, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. FHA mortgages were used to finance 18.2 percent of home purchases in September, based on a three-month moving average. That was down from a 21.9 percent share in September 2013 and 36.6 percent in May 2010, the highest level for FHA financing in the five-year history of HousingPulse. From 2008 through 2013, the Department of Housing and Urban Development increased...

The FHA has been reviewing the insurance premiums it charges and will do so again later this year as well as in 2015, said a top agency official, but whether this will lead to a reduction is unclear. Speaking at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association in Las Vegas this week, FHA Deputy Commissioner Biniam Gebre said the agency is “not done” with the premium issue and may revisit it in the next couple of months or perhaps next year. Gebre will temporarily replace FHA Commissioner Carol Galante, who is scheduled to leave the agency at the end of the week to join the faculty at the University of California in Berkeley. Galante headed...

The new jumbo security from JPMorgan Chase is scheduled to be issued on Oct. 30.

However, there was some good news. Flagstar reported residential originations of $7.19 billion, a 21 percent gain from 2Q.

An investor in GSE stock, Continental’s counsel in the case is Cooper & Kirk, the same law firm that represents Fairholme, a large hedge fund that bought up GSE stock last year.

One former CEO candidate told IMFnews that back when he was approached about the job, the starting salary for the position was at least $400,000.