A title insurance firm is taking a close look at due diligence provider Allonhill. Meanwhile, mergers and acquisitions in the residential finance industry could explode.

Six federal regulators, including the Federal Housing Finance Agency, re-proposed risk-retention requirements, as well as the definition for qualified residential mortgages this week, making significant changes that had been sought by lenders. The new proposal revises a proposed rule the agencies issued in 2011 to implement the risk-retention requirement of the Dodd-Frank Act. Among other things, the rule would recognize the full guaranty on payments of principal and interest provided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for their residential mortgage-backed securities as meeting the risk-retention requirements while the two GSEs are in conservatorship or receivership and have capital support from the federal government.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is ignoring a clear directive to rehabilitate Fannie Mae and the GSE conservator’s failure to restore the firm to financial health has come at the cost of the company’s common shareholders, according to a new lawsuit filed against the government earlier this week. Fannie shareholders Bryndon Fisher and Bruce Reid filed suit against the United States government, as well as Fannie as a nominal defendant, in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. This latest shareholder lawsuit does not challenge the legality of Fannie’s placement into conservatorship in September 2008.

The the most powerful consumer regulator in the nation raised concerns about aligning the definitions of 'qualified residential mortgage' and 'qualified mortgage.'

The agency watchdog wants HUD to pursue civil remedies against The Lending Company and impose fines for incorrectly certifying that mortgages were eligible for FHA insurance.

The NCUA has filed lawsuits against several investment bankers, including Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Securities and UBS Securities alleging securities law violations in the sale of MBS.

Commercial banks are earning a ton of dough on residential servicing fees, but nonbanks are seeing an erosion in profits.

HUD eliminated the standard 30-year, fixed-rate HECM in April because the default rate on the loans was about four times that of a non-HECM regular mortgage.

FHFA blames part of the GSEs’ significant losses on subprime MBS, which JPMorgan and 16 other financial institutions sold to Fannie and Freddie.

FHFA has been analyzing approaches for reducing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan limits across the country, "and any such change would be announced with adequate advance notice for implementation on January 1, 2014" the regulator said.