Between 2008 and early 2011, unsecured credit extensions by FHLBs to European institutions swelled from $66 billion to $123 billion.

The White House believes that the current housing finance system, where the government guarantees more than 80 percent of all mortgages through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA, is unsustainable.

Is refi specialist CashCall still on the auction block?

Most of the apartment loans being securitized go through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs.

According to an IRS private-letter ruling, certain excess servicing rights would constitute a real-estate asset, and income from the spread would be treated as interest on obligations secured by mortgages on real property.

The market for residential servicing rights continues to gain momentum with two new offerings from The Prestwick Mortgage Group.

Ocwen is looking at $400 billion of MSR deals, at least. Meanwhile, a lager wholesale may exit, and no, it's not EverBank.

A federal district court in New York last week ruled that a landmark discrimination lawsuit, the first to connect racial discrimination to the securitization of mortgage-backed securities, can move forward against Morgan Stanley. A July 25 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Adkins v. Morgan Stanley denied in part the investment bank’s motion to dismiss the case, which alleges violations of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The putative class-action suit was filed...

The wrath of Wall Street has descended upon Richmond, CA, after the city council adopted a plan using eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages, as a last resort, and resell them to beleaguered homeowners at a lower price. The American Securitization Forum, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Association of Mortgage Investors condemned Richmond’s decision to implement an April 2 agreement with Mortgage Resolution Partners (MRP) to use eminent domain to address the city’s severe foreclosure problem. The city became the first municipality in the country to adopt such an approach, though not the first to consider the idea. Richmond, like many California cities and municipalities, was hit...

Mary Jo White, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, stressed this week that the regulator plans to increase its enforcement activity, including more emphasis on trials. However, she said the SEC needs more appropriations from Congress to accomplish its goals. “We can’t judge at this point how many additional trials we’re going to have, but we already don’t have enough,” White said at a hearing this week by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. President Obama’s proposed...