Predicting that Countrywide Financial Corp.‘s loan portfolio will be a potential drag on the bottom line for scheduled purchaser Bank of America (BofA or NYSE: BAC), financial analyst Paul Miller, Jr.

Billionaire and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett said over the weekend that his company has acquired a portfolio of subprime mortgages and has frozen the rates on those loans, according to a MarketWatch report.

The U.S. House of Representatives will continue its quest for new solutions to curtail the nation’s housing crisis this week when it takes up H.R. 5818—a controversial house bill that, if passed, would create a HUD-run grant and loan program that would help communities refurbish and sell vacant foreclosure properties.

New York-based private equity firm Lightyear Capital and mortgage insurer Triad Guaranty, Inc., announced Friday that the two companies have entered into an agreement, that if approved and completed, will result in the creation of a new mortgage insurance company by the end of this year.

Nancy Abney with Prudential Gardner Realtors in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has spent more than two decades in the REO business, but says no one has inspired her more than a recent distressed homeowner, who managed to deal with his foreclosure gracefully, despite the fact, he didn’t know about the foreclosure until it was too late.

H&R Block Inc.,);/*1209735526456*/ the parent-company of subprime mortgage lender Option One Mortgage Corp., announced this week that the sale of Option One to WL Ross & Co.affiliate, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.

A recent drop in home values in certain communities across the country has been blamed on everything from subprime loans to slowing local economies, but a new report says escalating gas prices may have added significant fuel to the housing slowdown.

The Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Sheila Bair believes the government can save certain borrowers trapped in unaffordable mortgages by implementing a loan program that would allow the homeowners to pay up to 20-percent of their principal, Bair said in an editorial published in the Financial Times.

AllRegs, a company that provides the mortgage industry with a centralized repository of underwriting guidelines and product manuals, has announced the strategic purchase of Merit Matrix, a division of technology solutions provider Intraprise Solutions, Inc.

The Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) told a U.S. Senate Committee this week that the FTC is currently investigating the advertising practices of dozens of mortgage companies, according to a transcript of the hearing.