Mortgage | featured news

Investments that were vulnerable in the last financial crisis and believed to be gone for good have largely escaped new rules that were made to prevent another crisis.

Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year, the biggest annual profit in the U.S. mortgage giant's history, helped by a record fourth quarter.

A Manhattan federal judge on Monday signaled he will not rubber-stamp Citigroup Inc's proposed $590 million settlement of a shareholder lawsuit accusing it of hiding tens of billions of dollars of toxic mortgage assets.

Almost 2 million American homeowners were freed from negative equity in 2012, and the overall percentage of all homeowners with a mortgage in negative equity fell to 27.5 percent at the end of the fourth quarter, according to Zillow’s fourth quarter Negative Equity Report.

Most of the $40 billion Bank of America has set aside to pay out over the mortgage meltdown can be blamed on malfeasance at Countrywide Financial. But some investors say that BofA’s hands are not totally clean in this mess — and that the bank has gotten off too easy thus far.

The Justice Department and state prosecutors plan to file civil charges against Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service, accusing the firm of fraudulently rating mortgage bonds that led to the financial crisis, people briefed on the plan said.

HSBC Holdings Plc agreed to pay $249 million to end a case-by-case review of past foreclosures in the U.S., regulators announced on Friday.

Consumer advocates have complained that U.S. mortgage lenders are getting off easy in a deal to settle charges that they wrongfully foreclosed on many homeowners....

The government's consumer lending watchdog finalized new rules Thursday aimed at protecting homeowners from shoddy service and unexpected fees charged by companies that collect their monthly mortgage payments.

Those who own homes outright include retirees and a surprisingly high percentage of young adults, real estate website Zillow finds.What mortgage meltdown?