Solvency issues re-emerged for the Federal Housing Administration in a hearing convened Tuesday by the Senate Banking Committee, with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan calling for lower loan-to-value thresholds and more servicer competition to expand refinance opportunities. The hearing quickly turned to servicer competition, which the HUD official said is lacking in part because of strict underwriting guidelines under Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, inflating home prices and keeping refinance opportunities out of reach for many homeowners.

Lawmakers seated on the Senate Banking Committee convened a hearing Wednesday to discuss ways to make HARP a more effective and accessible option for responsible, underwater borrowers. Laurie Goodman, senior managing director at Amherst Securities Group, said her number one suggestion is to allow for competition by permitting a different servicer to refinance a borrower on the same terms that apply to the current servicer. Currently, only mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are eligible for refinancing under HARP.

Parties to the landmark mortgage servicing settlement appointed one man to oversee $25 billion in compliance. In an interview with DS News, Joseph A. Smith, onetime banking commissioner for North Carolina and ex-nominee to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, lays out the role he envisions playing as he monitors funds for homeowners, states, and the federal government. The settlement monitor speaks with an understated tone about his stewardship of the historic settlement, which 49 state attorneys general and federal officials completed in February.

The House Financial Services Committee signed off on legislation Wednesday that would repeal bailout funds under the Dodd-Frank Act and more than half the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) budget. Clearing the legislation by a party-line vote, committee members billed it as a way to slash $35 billion from the national deficit.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a bulletin Friday reminding financial institutions that they may be held accountable for violations under contracted service providers. The agency said that banks and nonbank entities need to supervise their third-party vendors with due diligence, consistently request and review their internal controls and training materials, and establish clear expectations about compliance. The CFPB is reaffirming its role as both a formal supervisor and informal trendsetter in the industry.

Eleven state attorneys general sent a letter to Edward DeMarco, Acting Director of the FHFA, urging him to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to move forward with principal reductions. Headlined by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, the letter doubled down on the FHFA to ""preserve assets and prevent unnecessary foreclosures by implementing loan modifications that include principal write-downs."" State attorneys general said that new reductions ""should consider all of a borrower's debts, not just the monthly mortgage debt, be uniform, transparent, and publicly disclosed.""

In May, field services company JMA Services assembled a golf charity event with the Troops First Foundation (T1F), securing guaranteed houses for combat-wounded veterans returning from theatres of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 70 lenders, servicers, and GSE representatives attended the charity event in McKinney, Texas. Proceeds from the event benefited T1F's Operation Front Door, a program in partnership with JMA Services that provides matching funds to disabled veterans relying on federal programs to make home purchases.

A New York appellate court has ruled against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS), increasing speculation about the role that possible re-foreclosures may play in a still-brittle market. It's the latest in a series of suits involving MERS, which was designed to allow the industry to fluidly and inexpensively transfer millions of mortgages from note-holding banks and institutions via an electronic system. MERS' own proposed rule prohibiting banks from foreclosing in its name - a central part of the controversy - remains in the works.

John Burns Real Estate Consulting released a housing report card Thursday that confirms most key market indicators trending southerly, signaling more distress may be in store. The research firm notes that annual resale activity within the existing-home market has slipped to just over 5 million residences, and home prices by some measurements have dropped to 2002 levels. With these numbers, the firm says, affordability has never been better for entry-level buyers, or worse for move-up and move-down buyers.