A mortgage program intended to help first-time homebuyers and prevent foreclosures in Illinois is changing its guidelines to include more borrowers, according to reports.

Frank Sinatra said if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But if you're a condo developer, you may as well just go somewhere else.

After months of discussion, the Obama administration today delivered a proposal to Capitol Hill that would slap unprecedented controls on the trading of over-the-counter derivatives, including mortgage-related credit default swaps, and urged its passage by year's end.

Ginnie Mae, the guarantor of mortgage-backed securities, tapped Bank of America to service about $25 billion in Federal Housing Administration receivables seized from mortgage firm Taylor, Bean & Whitaker last week, according to media reports.

Administration officials Thursday downplayed a proposal to deposit Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's multi-billion-dollar toxic loans into a bad bank structure, saying it was one of more than a half-dozen plans being discussed for the mortgage giants.

National home prices gained more than 5 percent in July, according to one statistics tracker, though optimism was tempered by signs of volatility and a seasonal market.

A major residential mortgage trade group last week reported an overall increase in the number of delinquencies, even as more indebted borrowers appeared to be catching up to their payments.

James Lockhart, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director who oversaw the government̢¢s seizure of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said Wednesday that he will step down and return to private finance.

When the Obama administration released the first servicer performance results Tuesday from its Making Home Affordable modification program, the news seemed mostly sunny.

Excitement surrounded last week’s news that Fortress Investment Group had hired director and former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Daniel Mudd as its new CEO.