RMBS

The Justice Department began sending letters Monday to servicemembers who are entitled to $20 million in damages from Bank of America Corp. for alleged violations of the Servicemember Civil Relief Act.

Home prices, on average, ended August at $205,000, an almost 4% drop from last year, according to new figures compiled by Lender Processing Services (LPS), Jacksonville, Fla.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) announced this afternoon it will receive $165 million from Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Securities to settle claims of wrongdoing in the sale of MBS to failed corporate credit unions.

Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Janet Yellen said Friday the central bank will soon issue a long-awaited package of proposed rules implementing the Dodd-Frank Act.

The ever-optimistic National Association of Realtors (NAR) believes the worst housing downturn since the Great Depression is almost over.

Lawyers have opened a new front in mortgage securities litigation by suing BNY Mellon and U.S. Bank over an alleged failure to properly handle the storage and recordkeeping of mortgage documents.

House and Senate conferees will not restore the $729,750 maximum loan limit on GSE-backed mortgages in high cost areas, sources told ASR sister publication National Mortgage News this weekend — but they have agreed to bump up the limit on Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans in lower cost areas.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could hurt the housing recovery if it imposes tighter restrictions on real estate investment trusts that purchase and securitize mortgages, according to industry comments filed with the agency.

A new Senate bill proposing to wind down the GSEs by at least 10% a year also includes a provision that would replace the private MERS System with an identical platform run by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) — along with new national standards for mortgage title transfers.

The New York banking department has reached an agreement with Morgan Stanley to implement new mortgage servicing standards after signing a similar deal with Goldman Sachs in September.