Topic: Mortgages

The Supreme Court says home loan applicants cannot sue a mortgage company for charging them a loan discount fee without giving them a loan discount.

Applications for U.S. home mortgages rose last week, fueled by demand for refinancings as mortgage rates hit fresh record lows, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Average U.S. rates for 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages fell to record lows for the third straight week. The steady decline has made home-buying and refinancing more affordable than ever for those who can qualify. The Christian Science Monitor reports.

Housing starts rose more than expected in April, according to a report that offered signs of a nascent housing recovery, even though permits for future building fell.

Applications for U.S. home mortgages surged last week, driven by increased demand for refinancing as interest rates hit fresh lows, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Australia's central bank had cut interest rates by an aggressive 50 basis points this month because growth and inflation had cooled and lending rates faced by the community had increased a little.

Suspected drug gang killers dumped 49 headless bodies on a highway near Mexico's northern city of Monterrey in one of the country's worst atrocities in recent years..

JPMorgan lost $15 billion in market value and a notch in its credit rating on Friday while a chorus of regulators and politicians reacted to its surprise $2 billion trading loss by demanding stiffer oversight for the banking industry.

Many of the hedge fund traders gathered at the Skybridge Alternatives investor summit in Las Vegas are enthusiastically seeking out the once "toxic" mortgage bonds for their portfolios.

Deutsche Bank agreed on Thursday to pay the federal government more than $200 million to settle accusations that it knowingly misled the Department of Housing and Urban Development about the quality of mortgages that later defaulted, the New York Times reports.

JPMorgan announced Thursday that it lost $2 billion in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money.

The government-controlled mortgage company has announced  that Donald Layton, former chief executive of brokerage firm ETrade Financial, will take over the top job on May 21.

Housing has been at the center of US woes for years, but it's also key to recovery. Although April’s Case-Shiller home price index offered a cloudy outlook on home prices, real estate website Zillow  is forecasting that the bottom may be near.

Fannie Mae, the largest source of U.S. housing funds, said it would not need to request more taxpayer aid this quarter after posting a $2.7 billion profit for the first three months of the year.

The percentage of U.S. homeowners behind on their mortgage payments dropped in the first three months of this year to the lowest level since 2009, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion.