Speaking at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., Michael Stegman, counselor to the Treasury secretary for housing finance policy, explained that lenders are currently reluctant to make non-agency loans without first knowing how they'll rate on the market. At the same time, credit rating agencies don't rate mortgage pools until they see the actual loan tape.

FNC, Inc.'s national Residential Price Index (RPI), a metric of prices in 100 of the nation's largest housing markets excluding REO and foreclosure sales, grew 0.6 percent month-over-month in July, slowing again from 0.8 percent in June (which in turn was down from 1.2 percent in May). The narrower 30-metro composite index saw a similar slowdown, also declining to 0.6 percent growth, while the 10-metro composite saw a half a percentage point drop to 0.4 percent.

U.S. Bank has reached a settlement with a housing regulator over allegations the bank discriminated against a Native American couple in denying them a refinance. Under the settlement's terms, U.S. Bank agreed to pay the couple's U.S. Bank credit card balance, amounting to nearly $11,500. The bank also agreed to approve their refinance application at the same interest rate and terms under which they originally applied in May 2013.

Valuations and asset management solutions provider LRES has added Emeka Madu to its team as manager of compliance, according to a company announcement.

In findings released Tuesday, COUNTRY Financial revealed 89 percent of Americans in its most recent Security Index survey feel that buying a home is a key part of achieving the American Dream despite their recent memories of the crash. Even more promising, 64 percent of respondents expressed belief that owning a home is an attainable goal for a typical middle-income family, a significant improvement over last year, when just 41 percent said the same.

In a poll of more than 2,000 consumers, Wells Fargo found 68 percent feel that now is a good time to buy a home, and 95 percent want to own if they don't already. On the other hand, while nearly three-quarters of respondents in Wells Fargo's survey said they "know and understand" the financial process involved in buying a home, large numbers also expressed doubt or misguided notions about homebuying requirements.

A new $835 million Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) portfolio has hit the market, with Colorado-based MountainView Servicing Group acting as the advisor. According to an announcement from MountainView, the bulk servicing offering includes 99.7 percent fixed-rate and 100 percent first-lien product with a weighted average original FICO score of 691.

HSBC Holdings is the latest institution to make good with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) after the firm's North American arm agreed Friday to pay hundreds of millions to settle claims revolving around faulty mortgage-backed securities (MBS) sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the years before the crash.

In Maryland, appraisal management and technology company CoesterVMS unveiled a new enhancement to its Encompass integration allowing clients to use the Cloud Control System as a native application built directly into their own workflow and business rules.

Just less than 19,000 tracked mortgage jobs were cut in April, May, and June, according to Mortgage Daily, with more than 20,000 job losses offsetting about 1,600 gains. The net loss is a major jump from the 8,100 reported losses in the first quarter and the nearly 3,000 reported a year ago. All of the reported cuts in the second quarter happened at banks, with credit unions and other non-banks adding jobs.