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.
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 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 Richmonds decision to implement an April 2 agreement with Mortgage Resolution Partners (MRP) to use eminent domain to address the citys 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 cant judge at this point how many additional trials were going to have, but we already dont have enough, White said at a hearing this week by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. President Obamas proposed...