Contracts, Invoices & Legal

The option for holders of older government-sponsored enterprise bonds that predated the move to uniform mortgage-backed securities now has a deadline. View the full article

Rising labor and material costs could weigh on final expenses, despite a slower summer for hurricane and tornado claims, according to Verisk. View the full article

Confidence among US homebuilders edged up in December as builders continued to deploy sales incentives to motivate buyers. View the full article

Rochester, New York, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, stood atop Realtor.com's list for the second consecutive year, due to their affordability. View the full article

The San Francisco-based banking giant reported solid gains in credit card and auto lending as credit remained in check and quarterly operating costs declined from a year ago. View the full article

An influx of adjustable-rate and cash-out refinance mortgage programs during the month pushed the Mortgage Credit Availability Index 0.7% higher in November. View the full article

A judge agreed to expand her temporary restraining order to add more federal worker unions after their lawyers said there's an "urgent" need to prevent layoffs. View the full article

Competition that impacted margins and prepayments in excess of expectations were challenges during the period, but executives report first quarter improvement. View the full article

Less than 45% of mortgage residential properties in the United States were equity-rich last quarter, a 1.5-percentage-point drop from the third quarter. View the full article

All of the Las Vegas-based company's channels, including Alterra Home Loans and Travisa Financial, will go by SimplyPMG, it announced Monday. View the full article

From water damage to regulatory fines, learn the key risks facing vacant properties and how mortgage lenders can protect their real estate assets. View the full article

A first look at the capital plan suggests it moves the real estate finance industry closer to changes it lobbied for, but the devil may be in the details. View the full article

Realtors and loan officers are wary of using artificial intelligence in place of a real estate agent, after a homeowner claimed to realize meaningful savings. View the full article

The real estate data firm said the merger will support efforts to scale and plans to ramp up development of enterprise technology products. View the full article

The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based bank expects the pace of loan growth to quicken this year, driven in part by its nine-month-old warehouse lending business. View the full article

The new regulation, which passed overwhelmingly in the state legislature, would allow insurers to remove wildfire protections from standard homeowners policies. View the full article

Democratic senators are calling for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott to compel the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to testify. View the full article

The impact of insurance costs, availability and related state rules also were top of mind at the Mortgage Bankers Association servicing conference. View the full article

Research from Andrew Davidson claims a significant number of mortgage borrowers would have a wide variance in credit score if less than three pulls are used. View the full article

The latest study from LodeStar found the ratio of average closing cost to home sales price in several states, led by Delaware, well above the national average. View the full article