Category: Top National News

Everybody knows how important credit scores are to obtaining a home mortgage. But are lenders lately playing a numbers game with consumers -claiming they’re willing to accept lower scores while actually approving applicants with higher scores on average than they did last year or even earlier this year?

A New Orleans lawyer whose mortgage fraud conviction in Las Vegas was overturned because of government misconduct now wants the government to pay his legal fees.

In the seven years since the world’s central banks responded to the financial crisis by slashing interest rates, more than a dozen in advanced economies have tried to move rates back up-but not a single one has been able to keep them there.

Marketing agreements between mortgage lenders and real estate brokerages have been commonplace for years. But federal regulators are cracking down on some of these arrangements as violations of anti-kickback laws, and two major lenders have taken steps to end the practice.

The National Appraisal Volume continued it downward slide into September dropping 2.72% for the week beginning Aug. 30.

Evans Bancorp in Hamburg, N.Y., has agreed to pay $825,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of mortgage redlining.

In the wake of an unprecedented U.S. housing bust that evolved into a global financial crisis, the business of bundling home loans that aren’t backed by the American government into bonds that can be sold to investors has all but disappeared.

Mortgage applications for new home purchases decreased by 6% in August from July, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Builder Application Survey.

There’s a big reason to believe that the U.S. economy will be able to withstand the start of the Fed tightening cycle: There’s still plenty of pent up activity in the housing sector.

Mortgage rates were little changed ahead of the Federal Reserve’s key rate decision next week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday.