The House Financial Services Committee signed off on largely symbolic legislation Wednesday that would repeal bailout funds under the Dodd-Frank Act, eliminate force-placed insurance requirements, and rope the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into future congressional appropriations processes. Clearing the legislation by a party-line vote, committee members billed it as a way to slash $35 billion from the national deficit. The bill also proposed doing away with bailout mechanisms under Dodd-Frank.

Home prices rose year-over-year on average for the second straight month, according to RE/MAX. Of 53 metro areas surveyed by the real estate company, RE/MAX found that median prices climbed 5.8 percent higher than in March last year. Home sales moved in the same direction by cresting 25.4 percent higher than in February, a shift upward year-over-year by 1.5 percent. The company chalked up the good news for prices and sales to improvements in weather, low interest rates, and better home prices.

HUD swore in a Virginia-based publisher with British credentials as deputy secretary Wednesday. Confirmed by the Senate in late March, Maurice Jones stepped up to serve as the federal agency├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós second senior-most official. Jones arrives at his new position with considerable credentials. Graduating from Hampden-Sydney College, he snagged a Rhodes scholarship to study and later pick up a degree from the University of Oxford. He later graduated from the University of Virginia with a juris doctor.

If new guidance from the consumer bureau means anything, lenders could face action in instances that allegedly involve discriminatory lending practices for homeowners ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô even if practices seem fair at face value. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a bulletin Wednesday that reasserts disparate impact, a legal doctrine tucked into the Equal Credit Opportunity Act by policymakers that lays blame at the feet of lenders for overt and disparate acts of discrimination.

Debt crises in Europe spurred a wave of refinance applications last week, leading mortgage loan applications to tick up by 6.9 percent, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The trade group found that mortgage loan application volume went up 6.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from the week before. The Refinance Index edged up 13.5 percent from the week before, with the refinance share of mortgage activity increasing to 75.2 percent of the share of total activity.

Mortgage servicers would feel the pain if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalizes new rules it plans to propose this summer, according to Fitch Ratings. The ratings agency said in a statement that increased operational, compliance, and reporting expenses would take place if the rules take effect without any modification by the agency. The CFPB issued statements last week that signal its intentions to roll out with new proposals for rules that require more disclosure and transparency from servicers.

HUD signed off on debarment Monday for three South Florida loan officers and a Pittsburgh title agent following convictions that found the four had reaped $2.5 million in reverse mortgage fraud. In a statement, the federal agency said that juries of their peers convicted loan officers Marcos Echevarria, Louis Gendason, and John Incandela for their roles in systematically identifying, then pressuring elderly homeowners to trade up their home loans for reverse mortgages. The three reportedly also committed appraisal fraud by exaggerating values for the properties to seize more funds.

Ginnie Mae reported $29.23 billion in guarantees for mortgage-backed securities in March this year. The company found Ginnie Mae II single-family pools on the way up with more than $21.56 billion in guarantees, alongside Ginnie Mae I single-family pools that totaled more than $5.34 billion. Single-family issuance for March reached $27.78 billion, while issuance for Home Equity Conversion securities for Ginnie Mae II single-family pools arrived at $882 million for the month.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a bulletin Friday reminding financial institutions that they may be held accountable for violations under contracted service providers. The agency said that banks and nonbank entities need to supervise their third-party vendors with due diligence, consistently request and review their internal controls and training materials, and establish clear expectations about compliance. The CFPB also called on financial institutions to adopt the internal controls necessary to supervise vendors.

The special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program released a damning report Thursday that said only 3 percent of the funds designated to the hardest-hit homeowners have reached their goals. The report found that only $217.4 million will have helped 30,640 homeowners by 2017, when the Hardest-Hit Fund expires. Seventy-eight percent of HHF funds went to unemployment assistance for homeowners, and nearly 98 percent went to the same or helped reinstate past due amounts, according to the report.