Homes sales and prices – along with construction activity – have improved over the past few months, but a true recovery in the housing sector is still far away due to tight mortgage credit, according to Federal Reserve monetary policy officials.

San Bernardino County is forging ahead with deliberations on a proposal to seize delinquent mortgages, despite its largest city's decision Tuesday night to seek bankruptcy.

CoreLogic and FICO this week released the FICO Mortgage Score Powered by CoreLogic. This new offering evaluates the traditional credit data from the national credit data repositories and the supplemental consumer credit data in the CoreLogic CoreScore.

More than 90 members of the House of Representatives are urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to provide a legal safe harbor in the final qualified mortgage rule to protect lenders from frivolous lawsuits.

McDermott Will & Emery has hired structured finance attorney Perry Sayles to its New York office as a partner in its financial institutions advisory practice group.

CMBS data provider Trepp has partnered with BlackRock's iShares Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) business to bring together the iShares Barclays CMBS Bond Fund into its CMBS analytics product, a release from Trepp said.

A true bottom has formed under house prices but that assumption could be challenged later this year as the share of distressed sales once again outpaces home sales during the fall and winter months, according to Wells Fargo.

In a conference call yesterday, John McElravey, head of consumer ABS research at Wells Fargo, said that the U.S. auto ABS sector is now the “new benchmark for the consumer ABS market” replacing the credit card sector.

Lawyers for National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) asked a federal court Tuesday to bar potentially embarrassing testimony by NCUA board members Debbie Matz and Gigi Hyland and former chief corporate examiner Kent Buckham in the civil trial over the 2009 collapse of WesCorp FCU, which is projected to cost credit unions $7 billion to resolve.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a slight 2.1% decline in mortgage application activity as a slowing in refinances was partially offset by a rise in purchases. Aiding activity as well were new lows set in mortgage rates. Results were adjusted for the Fourth of July holiday.

Lawmakers and financial market participants sparred Tuesday over the economic and other impacts of the Dodd-Frank law, as well as the resulting Volcker Rule and potential new money market fund rules.

The scandal brewing over alleged rigging of the London interbank offered rate has piqued the interest of the Senate Banking Committee.