Unlike hedge funds and other investment vehicles, mortgage real estate investment trusts are subject to a 'good asset' test that limits the majority of their investments to real estate assets.

Bank of America put another major dispute over soured mortgage bonds behind it Monday. But now it faces a new legal challenge that threatens to wrap the Charlotte bank and Wells Fargo in another round of mortgage servicing litigation.
 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc must face fraud claims brought by CIFG Assurance North America over insurance it provided for $275 million in mortgage-backed securities, a New York state appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings shares jumped Tuesday after the loan servicer reported first-quarter earnings and revenue above expectations and raised guidance for this year and next.
 

The wealth effect from rising house prices may not be as effective as it once was in spurring the U.S. economy. Rather than using their properties as ATM machines to boost spending, homeowners increasingly are paying down the principal and shortening the maturities of their mortgages in a move Florida banker Rob Nunziata calls “forced savings.” Cash-in refinancings -- in which borrowers invest more of their own money in the house -- outnumbered cash-outs by more than two-to- one in the fourth quarter, according to Freddie Mac (FMCC).

This week at the Mortgage Bankers Association National Secondary conference there was a panel entitled "The Role of Rating Agencies and the Re-emergence of the Private Label RMBS Market." As I sat down to listen to the discussion I was reminded of what Albert Einstein has said "insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Yennifer Olortiga’s American dream of homeownership turned into a foreclosure nightmare when she tried to modify her mortgage two years ago. The Staten Island mom told The Post that she had been paying her Bank of America mortgage for six years but now finds herself, her husband and three kids close to getting booted out onto the street because of BofA’s bungled loan-modification process.

MBIA Inc. (MBI) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) settled a five-year legal battle over soured mortgage debt in a deal that will pay MBIA the equivalent of $1.7 billion and give the bank a 5 percent stake in the bond insurer. MBIA shares surged to the highest since September 2008.