Daily Dose

U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), who was elected chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs earlier this month, has announced the members of the five banking subcommittees for the 114th Congress, according to an announcement from the SBC.

Approximately half a million homeowners who received a mortgage loan modification in 2010 through the government's Home Affordable Modification Program, commonly known as HAMP, are due to reset in 2015 – and those homeowners will be facing slowly increasing monthly mortgage payments. Will these homeowners be able to handle the payment increases, or will there be a massive wave of re-defaults?

Government-sponsored enterprise Freddie Mac has announced that it will begin its second sale of “deeply delinquent” mortgage loans in three pools worth approximately $410 million. Delinquent loans left over from a wave of foreclosures following the housing bust have dogged Freddie Mac and its sister GSE, Fannie Mae. The conservator for both GSEs,

A Florida man has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for a fraud scheme perpetrated against businesses and individuals seeking lines of credit, according to an announcement on Friday from Christy Romero, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP).

Just as it did in November, Mississippi led all states with the highest percentage of non-current mortgages and serious delinquent mortgages in December, according to data released recently as part of Black Knight Financial Services' December 2014 “First Look” at mortgage data released Friday.

Despite recently seeing their strongest year in more than half a decade, housing starts are still running below their long-term average of about 1.5 million annually—and that situation isn't expected to normalize for at least another few years, if economists' forecasts are right.

Just one month after experiencing the largest monthly increase in six years, the nation's mortgage delinquency rate took a big tumble in December, according to Black Knight Financial Services' December 2014 "First Look" at Mortgage Data released Friday. The mortgage delinquency rate, or the number of mortgage loans that are 30 days or more past due but not in foreclosure, dropped down to 5.6 percent for December – a decline of 7.2 percent from November and 12.7 percent from December 2013.

A U.S. District judge on Wednesday denied the U.S. Department of Treasury's motion to strike Pershing Square Capital Management's voluntary dismissal of a lawsuit it filed in August over misappropriation of government funds.

Wells Fargo and JPMorgan have agreed to pay a combined $35.7 million in penalties and redress over their roles in an alleged kickback scheme with a Maryland title company, according to an announcement from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Thursday.

While that prediction is still modest, Fannie Mae says it's strong enough to "drag last year's unspectacular housing activity upward," according to the report. Fannie Mae credits projections for continued low gasoline prices, firming labor market conditions, rising household net worth, improving consumer and business confidence, and reduced fiscal headwinds to usher in a year of steady, if "not yet robust" economic improvement that should lead to a higher rate of household formation in 2015.