The Mortgage Bankers Association made clear in letter Thursday that it opposes any proposed changes to the existing way mortgage servicers receive compensation. The letter addresses recent moves by the Federal Housing Finance Agency to open up market share for servicers by reducing their risk, granting more flexibility to guarantors on non-performing loans, and shoring up liquidity in the to-be-announced market. The MBA recommended a cash reserve structure in lieu of compensation changes.

Does housing matter to voters? A recent survey says yes ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô and finds that housing policy will rank higher for voters than even national security come 2012. Houselogic.com, a consumer Web site affiliated with the National Association of Realtors, polled respondents across the country for the HouseLogic survey it released Friday. About one-third of all voters want to hear proposals from presidential candidates that address housing policy. Jobs and unemployment ranked first.

Mortgage rates remained largely unchanged this week as debt crises in Europe drag on, with finance leaders and heads of state there seemingly unable to broker a solution. Mortgage giant Freddie Mac and finance Web site Bankrate.com each released separate surveys chronicling lurches in interest rates for loans. Bankrate.com also fielded record lows for jumbo 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, with rates for the loan falling to 4.68 percent for the first time in the history of the survey.

Senate Republicans stood by their 44-member pledge Thursday by blocking a vote scheduled for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director-nominee Richard Cordray. Fifty-three votes fell below the 60-vote threshold needed to move the full Senate toward a vote to either confirm or reject the former Ohio attorney general, without whom the CFPB is unable to exert the array of powers granted it to supervise nonbank financial institutions. Forty-four Republicans pledged earlier to deny a director.

Low interest rates for mortgage loans drove up mortgage application volume 12.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from the week before. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported the latest figures in a weekly survey released Wednesday. Mortgage applications shot up 60.2 percent on an unadjusted basis in contrast with figures from the previous week. The Refinance Index climbed 15.3 percent from the week before, as the Purchase Index ticked up 8.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The chief economist with Fannie Mae said Tuesday that Europe is "clearly" in recession and forecasted that the United States will endure market corrections for the next five years as housing largely stays in the doldrums. Fannie Mae economist Doug Duncan spoke at the 2011 MPact Mortgage Banking Conference and Expo, which former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headlined Monday evening. Rice discussed problems with the euro zone during her keynote address. Duncan predicted that annual growth will hedge toward 1.5 percent over the next year.

A West Chester family, a purported conspiracy leader, and several others entered court dockets this week and the last for their alleged roles in reaping a combined $15.8 million in mortgage fraud across the country. MReport sourced several stories of mortgage fraud for Monday├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós mortgage fraud blotter from several news outlets around the country. Alleged and convicted fraudsters reportedly turned a profit off false information, sham home sales, and made-up identities.

A recent report by the inspector-general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency casts the independent federal agency as one overly deferential to the decisions of the GSEs.

Ally Financial Inc. announced Friday that it will stop buying new mortgage loans in Massachusetts, effective Monday, in connection with a spat of suits against four other big lenders over allegedly illegal foreclosure activity. On Thursday Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley filed suit against Ally and four others ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô alleging that the lenders foreclosed on homes illegally and without mortgage notes.

In good economic news, payrolls picked up 120,000 jobs in Nov., helping shrink employment to 8.6 percent ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô the lowest in more than two years, according to The Labor Department.