The creation of a “sustainable housing finance policy” and an end to the “too big to fail” oversight approach with large banks top April’s to-do list for the House Financial Services Committee when Congress returns from its two-week spring recess next week.

Funding for the housing programs administered by the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Housing Service will not be subject to sequestration even though mandatory budget cuts are now being implemented across the board at all federal agencies.

Nationstar Mortgage clarified that the non-agency MBS it plans to issue in the second quarter of 2013 is an asset-backed security with servicing advances from non-agency mortgages. Genworth U.S. Mortgage Insurance, a unit of Genworth Financial, Inc., announced on Friday that it will offer 24 training classes in April to help mortgage lenders and servicers improve their efficiency and build their business. Fannie Mae President and CEO Tim Mayopoulos said this week that it would be a “mistake” for official Washington to allow the prospect of the newly profitable GSEs to continue to slow walk efforts on housing finance reform.

Despite its efforts to enhance its hiring outreach to minority and women potential contractors and employees during 2012, the Federal Housing Finance Agency still faces challenges finding qualified and diverse candidates.

The head of the San Francisco Fed expects that the Fed's purchases of Treasury and MBS will continue well into 2013.

The head of the Mortgage Bankers Association is pleased with the Obama administration's efforts to boost lending to borrowers with weaker credit.

Home prices nationwide jumped in February by the largest margin in seven years, said CoreLogic while the SEC has decided to allow public companies to Twitter and Facebook.

An Arizona court is expected to rule soon on whether to approve a proposed asset and stock purchase agreement worth up to $267 million between the appointed receiver of PMI Mortgage Insurance Corp. and private-equity investor Arch Capital.

The Structured Finance Industry Group formed as a non-profit company about a month ago and is working to set up an infrastructure to compete with the American Securitization Forum. The group said its initial efforts will focus on hiring an executive director, advocacy and arrangements for an industry conference. The SFIG was formed by major securitization industry players frustrated with the governance of the ASF. While the SFIG has been careful not to publicly compare itself with the ASF, three of the SFIG’s four initial officers were previously board members of the ASF and the group shares a number of goals with the ASF. Reginald Imamura was named...

Fannie Mae received high, but not quite perfect, marks from the Federal Housing Finance Agency in its compliance with the FHFA’s Conservatorship Scorecard.