Daily Dose

Federal regulators announced on Tuesday they have finalized a rule establishing a risk retention framework for mortgage lenders securitizing and selling loans.

The Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) is working to expand availability for mortgage credit in an attempt to give the housing market a lift, and is also working on ways to mitigate risk to GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FHFA director Mel Watt said in a speech delivered on Monday.

Chartered as a national bank in 1880, NBRS converted to a Maryland charter in 2002. Following the financial crisis of last decade, the bank took years of losses from non-performing assets and was never able to find enough capital to return to sound condition, said Acting Commissioner Gordon Cooley of the state's financial regulation office.

The number of listings last month was approximately 1.87 million, down 2.7 percent annually and 7.9 percent monthly. The decline compares to Redfin's latest analysis, which showed an unexpected bump in inventory from new listings. Redfin's data measures a narrower list of markets nationwide.

A former branch manager of an Alabama bank that received assistance through the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was sentenced after pleading guilty to fraud, Special Inspector General for TARP (SIGTARP) announced recently.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Monday announced the finalization of a rule proposed in May that would allow companies that limit consumer data-sharing to post privacy notices online instead of delivering them individually.

Maryland saw a spike in foreclosure activity in the third quarter that gave it the second highest foreclosure rate in the nation behind only Florida, according to RealtyTrac's Third Quarter 2014 Foreclosure Report released earlier this week.

In a separate agreement the GSEs and FHFA are also reportedly considering programs that could reopen the door to guarantee some mortgages with down payments as low as 3 percent, including loans to first-time homebuyers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Fannie Mae stopped taking such loans last year, while Freddie Mac stopped guaranteeing them years ago.

CoreLogic has released its fourth out of a series of four white papers entitled Foundation for a Sound Housing Market addressing the high-level aspects of the challenges today's mortgage servicing sector is facing.

Morgan Stanley's third quarter 2014 net revenues of $8.9 marked an increase from $8.0 billion from the same period a year ago, the investment bank reported in its Q3 2014 earnings statement released on Friday.