A Florida man has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for a fraud scheme perpetrated against businesses and individuals seeking lines of credit, according to an announcement from Christy Romero, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP).

The Michigan State Senate passed a bill on Friday to prevent those with delinquent property tax payments to bid in foreclosure auctions and prevent homeowners from intentionally allowing their homes to go to foreclosure and buy them back in an auction for a lower price.

The housing market will continue its gradual recovery and gain momentum in 2015 after a disappointing 2014, according to the Wells Fargo Economics Group 2015 Economic Outlook entitled "A Whole New Ballgame," released earlier this week.

Washington, D.C.-based NeighborWorks America, one of the nation's largest community development corporations, announced that more than 1.8 million homeowners have received foreclosure prevention counseling through the association's National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program (NFMC).

U.S. Representative Ed Royce (R-California), a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, has issued a statement calling the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)'s announcement that the Agency will divert GSE money to the Housing Trust Fund and Capital Magnet Fund "outrageous."

Fannie Mae has expanded its risk sharing offerings with Wednesday's announcement of the credit insurance risk transfer (CIRT) deal, which transfers the credit risk on a pool of loans from the taxpayers to a panel of domestic reinsurers.

A $1.1 trillion congressional spending bill proposed on Thursday may avoid another government shutdown, but Biniam Gebre, acting commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), is disappointed that certain FHA programs were not included in that spending plan.

The U.S. Department of Treasury announced that is recovered $22 million for taxpayers through the sale of First BanCorp common stock earlier this week, and that it planned to sell additional stock in the San Juan, Puerto Rico-based bank.

Keeping in line with the steadily increasing number of foreclosures in New Jersey, Atlantic City turned in the highest foreclosure rate in the nation among metropolitan areas with a population greater than 200,000 for November, according to RealtyTrac's U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for November 2014 released Thursday.

The majority of mortgage industry professionals said they believed that the lowering of the down payment to 3 percent for first-time homebuyers by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a step in the right direction for the housing market, according to the Collingwood Group's November 2014 Mortgage Industry Outlook Report released earlier this week.