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Financial regulators said Tuesday they hope to finish their work on a rule aimed at tightening mortgage standards and reducing risk by the end of this year. In a Senate Banking Committee hearing, FDIC chair Martin Gruenberg said his agency and others are "in the end game" of their work on a rule that would require mortgage-backed securities (MBS) issuers to hold a stake on packaged loans that don't meet certain exemption requirements.

In survey findings released Monday, Better Homes and Gardens found that the current generation of teenagers—dubbed "Generation Z"—already values homeownership as the cornerstone of the American Dream, with 82 percent of teens surveyed saying it is the most important factor. Looking to their future, 97 percent of those surveyed said they believe they will own a home.

Another downturn in consumer attitudes has spurred analysts at Fannie Mae to rein in their outlook for the housing market in 2015. Despite economic strides made in the ...

Profits at independent mortgage banks nationwide jumped from the first quarter to the second as loan production spiked, according to a trend report from business advisory firm Richey May & Co. "Independent mortgage bankers' unit volume, expenses and margins were very close to those they experienced in the third quarter of 2013," said Keith May, managing director of advisory services at Richey May.

Despite economic strides made in the last few months, Fannie Mae's latest survey found Americans' outlook toward housing deteriorated again in August, "[suggesting] that housing activity may resume its modest recovery in 2015 after some pullback last year," analysts said. "The August National Housing Survey results lend support to our forecast that 2015 will likely not be a breakout year for housing," said Doug Duncan, SVP and chief economist at Fannie Mae.

A new report from RealtyTrac finds that despite claims of student loan debt holding down U.S. housing, 96 percent of markets in the country are still considered affordable ...

While the nation's supply of for-sale homes has seen some steady improvements over the year, a new concern has emerged: Most of the inventory now hitting the market ...

Assurant Specialty Property recently announced it acquired eMortgage Logic, LLC in an effort to expand its risk management offerings for the mortgage industry.

MBA's Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI), a gauge of credit access based on borrower profiles and underwriting criteria at lenders nationwide, slipped to 116.1 last month from 116.4 in July, the group reported. A decline indicates tighter standards overall in the market. Both the conventional lending and government-focused indices edged down as well, each declining less than a percentage point from July.

Looking at the stock of homes for sale in its network of markets, national brokerage Redfin reported that, among the "mid-range" of home prices ($130,000–$375,000) available supply has actually fallen 17 percent over the last three years to a total of 668,000 as of July. In the lowest quartile of the market, the shortage is even more severe, with supply down nearly 50 percent since 2011.