Housing Market, Banks | featured news

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.

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.

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.

Ten major banks and mortgage companies agreed Monday to pay $8.5 billion to settle federal complaints that they wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners who should have been allowed to stay in their homes.

A $10 billion settlement to resolve claims of foreclosure abuses by major lenders is expected to be announced on Monday, several people with knowledge of the discussions said.

Among first-lien mortgages that received a principal reduction, borrowers had their loan balances cut by an average of $117,000, according to the independent monitor established to ensure that banks were meeting the terms of a settlement agreed to in March.

The $1-billion civil suit alleges that BofA's Countrywide fraudulently deceived mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into believing the company's risky loans were safe and sound.

Citigroup Inc said quarterly profit plunged on a $4.7 billion write-down of its stake in a brokerage operated by Morgan Stanley, but mortgage lending increased and capital markets results rebounded.

Two of the nation's largest banks released third-quarter results that suggest the U.S. housing market, a key factor in the nation's economic performance, is bouncing back as mortgage rates hit record lows and home refinancings surge.