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The nearly two-month long court battle between the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and Nomura Holdings came to an end Monday when a federal judge found the bank liable for selling shoddy mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

According to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) recent study, rising prices of homes have helped homeowners build housing wealth, but the research found a worsening inequality in homeownership gains in metro areas.

In their Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), Freddie Mac found that mortgage rates inched to the highest levels seen in nearly a month for the week ending May 7, 2015. Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist at Freddie Mac, attributes the rise in part to a selloff in German bonds that drove U.S. Treasury yields above 2.2 percent.

There are many metrics by which to judge the current administration against those of the past. This week, ValueWalk ranked the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ presidents as judged by their homeownership rates. Making ValueWalk’s ‘best’ list were Presidents Clinton, Johnson (Lydon), and Carter who saw homeownership expand during their presidencies by 5.1 percent, just over 1.1 percent, and just under 1.1. percent, respectively. ValueWalk ranks President Obama as one of the worst presidents when it comes to homeownership numbers, followed by President Regan

Fannie Mae reported a net income of $1.9 billion for the first quarter of 2015, up from $1.3 billion from the previous quarter, according to Fannie Mae's Q1 2015 financial results released Thursday. The primary driver of the nearly 50 percent quarter-over-quarter increase in net income was lower fair value losses for Q1, according to Fannie Mae's announcement.

Retesting of Ocwen Financial's compliance with the terms of the 2012 National Mortgage Settlement (NMS) for the first quarter of 2014 revealed that the Atlanta-based servicer failed one metric originally reported as a pass, but passed the other eight metrics, according to a release from the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight.

A new bill has been introduced to legislation by presidential nominee, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). The proposal is intended to prevent another costly taxpayer bailout and safeguard the economy by breaking up the nation’s largest banks. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California) proposed a similar bill in the House.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications report, mortgage applications have decreased 4.6 percent from last week. The Market Composite Index, which measures the amount of mortgage loans, decreased 4.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending May 1. The Index experienced a 4 percent decrease compared to last week on an unadjusted basis.

U.S. Congressman Ed Royce (R-California) has announced that he plans to submit legislation by the end of the week to prevent a potential pay increase for Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has given Freddie Mac and its fellow GSE, Fannie Mae, authorization to review the salaries of their respective CEOs, Layton and Timothy Mayopoulos. Both CEOs made $600,000 each without bonuses in 2014. The pay reviews for the top executives at the GSEs are largely due to concerns that the Enterprises will not be able to stay competitive because their CEOs make less than some lower-ranked executives.

Housing and economic activity has returned to or exceeded normal levels in 68 of about 360 metropolitan areas in the country (about 19 percent) as of the end of Q1 2015, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/First American Leading Markets Index (LMI) released Wednesday.