The federal government leveled charges against Bank of America Monday that the mortgage company wrongfully discriminated against three borrowers with disabilities. HUD filed suit under the False Claims Act, alleging that Bank of America requested proof of disability from borrowers and Social Security income information after denying their qualifications for mortgage loans. In a sign of the growing authority for working groups, HUD said that it would hand off the investigation to the Justice Department and Federal Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which will assign it to a group.

More homebuyers are scooping up properties with cash only, even in an environment for record-low mortgage rates, according to a recent survey. Campbell Surveys and Inside Mortgage Finance jointly released the HousingPulse Tracking Survey, collecting responses from about 2,500 real estate agents around the industry. The survey said that cash buyers will account for roughly half of all homebuyers in 2012 if current trends continue. The survey also attributed the rise in all-cash transactions to hefty discounts and late appraisals.

MetLife originated $11 billion in commercial mortgages in 2011, making last year the largest on record for the life insurer. The company said in a statement Monday that it achieved the results by signing off on a number of real estate transactions with mortgages roughly equal to $200 million and above. It said that these include $350 million on a loan for commercial real estate in Manhattan and $255 million on a mortgage for an office building in Chicago. The record-breaking loans from last year come on the heels of a pullout by MetLife from the forward mortgage origination business.

Wells Fargo recently announced that company veterans Brad Blackwell and Greg Gwizdz will take up new positions for the lending division responsible for non-agency mortgages.

Pending-home sales shot up by 8 percent year-over-year in January, according to the National Association of Realtors. The trade group found that pending-home sales ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô contract signings for homes that have not yet closed ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô rose from 89.8 in January last year, which it indexes on a monthly basis. NAR said that the Pending Home Sales Index also climbed by 2 percent to 97 in January, reaching the highest figure since the homebuyer tax credit lifted it to 111.3 in April 2010. Regionally, the index gained by 7.6 percent to reach 78.2 for the Northeast, reflecting a 9.8-percent year-over-year increase.

The lights went dark for two banks in Georgia and Minnesota Friday, with one unable to secure an acquirer for deposits. The cash registers at Little Falls-based Home Savings of America fell silent without any bank scheduled to take up $434.1 million in total assets and $432.2 million in total deposits. The FDIC said in a statement that it approved payouts for customers worth the sum of their deposits. The agency insures deposits for up to $250,000 each. State regulators in Georgia also shuttered Ellaville-based Central Bank of Georgia.

Bank of America announced Thursday that it will cease making new refinance mortgage sales to Fannie Mae as the mortgage heavyweights tangle over sensitive buyback claims from the financial crisis. The bank will stop selling first-lien refinance loans to the GSE for securitization purposes this month, it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. B of A cited "contractual delivery commitments and variances" for a halt in sales against a backdrop of legal wrangling with Fannie Mae that it called "inconsistent" with past statements from the government-sponsored enterprise.

New home sales fell 0.9 percent in January, declining from 324,000 in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 321,000. The Commerce Department found that the new home sales from January reflected a 3.5-percent increase year-over-year, up from a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 310,000. Sales in the Northeast accordingly leapt forward by 11.1 percent from December but fell 39.4 percent from January last year. The South boasted still-strong numbers on either basis, up 9.3 percent month-over-month and 15.3 percent year-over-year.

Interest rates for mortgage loans climbed close to 4 percent this week as a second Greek bailout sowed more confidence in the investor crowd and signs emerged that housing may see an upswing. Finance Web site Bankrate.com and mortgage company Freddie Mac each released separate surveys, with analysts attributing the rise to different causes. The GSE found the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage lifting to 3.95 percent, up from 3.87 percent. Bankrate.com saw rates for the loan hit 4.16 percent, up from 4.10 percent last week.

Mortgage application volume contracted by 4.5 percent from the week before, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The Market Composite Index, a measure of volume for loan applications, fell 3.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the MBA├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós weekly survey. Seasonally adjusted purchases declined by 2.9 percent from the week before and rose by 1.4 percent on an unadjusted basis. The adjustable-rate mortgage share of activity declined from 5.4 percent of total volume to 5.3 percent.