Mortgage, Real Estate | 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.

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.

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....

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

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.

Average mortgage rates in the U.S. were slightly lower over the past week and remained around historic lows, according to mortgage-finance company Freddie Mac.

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.