Fannie Mae's final multifamily issuance numbers for 2011 are in and they reflect a 50% increase from the previous year, according to an executive at the GSE.

Former Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd, who was named last month in a mortgage-related Securities and Exchange Commission fraud suit, has officially resigned from publicly traded investment manager Fortress Investment Group and its board, ending a leave of absence.

Citigroup will no longer purchase "medium or high-risk" loans that could result in buyback requests from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, in the bank's latest effort to improve the quality of mortgages it buys from correspondent lenders, according to an internal memo obtained by ASR sister publication American Banker.

President Obama's State of the Union address included a section on refinancing initiatives that will strike a chord with mortgage investors, a Barclays Capital report said.

Realogy Corp. plans to issue roughly $593 million of senior secured first lien notes due 2020 and around $325 million of senior secured notes due 2020 in a private placement.

With both refinancing and purchase activity lower, mortgage application activity declined 5.0% in the week ending Jan. 20.

Dutch mortgage originator Obvion yesterday announced the first Dutch RMBS of the year, Storm 2012-I.

It would cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac almost $100 billion to write down the principal on the underwater loans they control to current market values, according to a new estimate released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The state attorney general leading settlement talks with the country's top mortgage servicers batted down speculation Monday that a deal had been reached.

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. plans on doubling its ABS and covered bond trading and sales European unit this year, according to a Bloomberg report.

RIFCO National Auto Finance Corp. has received a new, $20 million securitization facility through Aviator Trust.

Acting Comptroller of the Currency John Walsh in remarks prepared for delivery at ASF 2012 said it was hard to imagine full recovery of the financial system without the liquidity and funding avenues provided by a well functioning securitization market.