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With Standard and Poor's refusing to rate their their criteria for commercial mortgage-backed securities, Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. withdrew their joint $1.5 billion bond sale of the financial products Thursday ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô a last-minute game change that sent shockwaves through the industry. Bloomberg News reported that the banks had triggered a ratings review need by S&P by raising the threshold for lower-ranked debt set to take the brunt of potential losses.

Radian Guaranty, Inc. is multiplying its sales force with the addition of three new team members. Andrew (Andy) Cooper, Shelley Duffy, and Patrick Harrigan are joining Radian├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós sales division. Cooper will now serve as Radian├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós vice president, national account manager, and he├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬óll be responsible for managing and developing strategies with the company├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós largest lending partners.

Mortgage interest rate deductions, treasured by homeowners for their help with ownership and health insurance, may soon get the axe, as lawmakers struggle to raise revenue and gain the upper hand on the multi-trillion-dollar deficit. If a Senate budget plan works its way to the House, the nation's homeowners may see their taxes spike by as much as $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. The bipartisan "Gang of Six" senators moved forward with a proposal that would slash mortgage interest rate deductions.

As House Republicans shifted their focus to a balanced budget amendment Friday in order to push through a debt-ceiling raise bill, two analytics companies posted upticks in mortgage rates - a sign that some say the markets feel increasingly unsure about whether the nation will be able to pay its debts come August 2. A Bankrate, Inc. survey reflected a 6-basis point surge to 4.74 percent, with mortgages totaling 0.35 discount and origination points, with Freddie Mac reporting a similar jump.

After taking a nosedive in April and recovering in May, pending home sales climbed upward at a steady pace over June, according to a sales index released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors. As regions showed signs of recovery, market watchers faulted leery lenders and bad appraisals for a less-than-timely rebound. Releasing the Pending Home Sales Index, NAR revealed encouraging gains in unclosed contracts, as signings went up by 2.4 percent to settle at 90.9 in June.

Plummeting refinance applications crimped Federal Housing Administration mortgage loan applications over June, according to a report issued by the federal agency, with total volume falling 22 percent less than volume at the same time last year. The FHA attributed the plunge to a 50 percent decline in year-over-year numbers for refinance applications. Data from June last year suggests a sharp decline in refinance loan applications, which dropped from 69,876 to 35,367 last month.

On Thursday the Office of Thrift Supervision went dark in offices and locations around the country, with the bulk of its supervisory responsibilities and employees relocating to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and several other federal agencies. Come October, the agency ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô responsible for supervising savings banks and associations since 1989 ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô will officially cease to exist. The OCC received transfers of authority that includes regulating institutions with less than $10 billion in assets.

Is it really a buyers├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ó market? Not according to recent survey results from J.D. Power and Associates, which demonstrated that sellers are more content than buyers in the current real estate market. The study looked at three key areas of the home-buying process: real estate agents, real estate offices utilized, and auxiliary services. Buyers positivity dropped by around 1 percent between 2010 and 2011, and the decrease is attributed to a 14 point drop in real estate agent satisfaction numbers.

As of September 30, BancorpSouth, Inc. will be in search of a new vice chairman and chief credit officer due to the recently accounted retirement of W. Gregg Cowsert. He will leave BancorpSouth after more than 20 years with the company, which he joined in 1990 as a senior vice president and regional loan administrator in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

On Wednesday the Federal Housing Finance Agency slapped UBS Americas Inc. and several other defendants with a suit in the U.S. district court for the Southern District of New York, claiming the company violated federal law by selling bad residential private-label mortgage-backed securities to GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Aiming to recover losses stemming from a $4.5 billion investment by the GSEs in 16 pools of mortgage-backed securities, the federal agency alleges in the suit that UBS misstated and omitted important details.