The U.S. government may have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgage aid to struggling homeowners who did not qualify for that help, a new report found. The inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the agency did not adequately enforce standards for its Preforeclosure Sale Program, which uses government aid to cover the shortfall for troubled homeowners who must sell their home for less than they owe on their mortgages. The program ran from September 2010 to August 2011, paying more than $1.7 billion in claims on nearly 20,000 homes. Read full article >>

Three-Judge Panel Thwarts Borrower's Attempt at "winning a free house" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Jason Lobo Phone: 703.652.1660 Email: jasonl@mersinc.org Reston, Virginia, September 19, 2012 -MERSCORP Holdings, Inc. today announced that a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the July 7, 2011, dismissal of a plaintiffs' wrongful foreclosure complaint against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) and two other defendants. In Wigginton v. The Bank of New York Mellon , Senior U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish dismissed the plaintiff's five-count complaint, which asserted claims of breach of contract, unreasonable collection efforts and defamation based on her belief that MERS' transfer of its interest in the plaintiff's deed of trust to the foreclosing lender Bank of New York Mellon (Mellon) and the subsequent foreclosure were unlawful. "Applying Texas law, courts in this circuit have consistently rejected claims based on an allegedly wrongful or illegal foreclosure where the deed of trust specifically grants the defendant a right to foreclose upon the plaintiff's default," Judge Fish held. "And the deed of trust, on its face, grants MERS a right to foreclose upon Wigginton's default, a right Mellon acquired vis-à-vis MERS' transfer of its interest." The Court of Appeals panel found that the District Court's analysis in dismissing all counts was correct.  "Winning a free house simply because the mortgage lenders sought to use normal means to recover it from a defaulted debtor would indeed be a lucky strike. But such windfalls are the province of the sweepstakes, not of the federal courts," the Court of Appeals panel wrote in its judgment. "Dr. Wigginton has apparently enjoyed years of free housing while pursuing this meritless litigation." Chief Judge Edith H. Jones and Circuit Judges Edward C. Prado and Jennifer Walker...

FDIC's Hoenig Says Banks May Return to Pre-2008 Risky Behaviors Businessweek If big U.S. banks are not forced to sever their investment arms from traditional banking, they will return to behavior that led to the 2008 credit crisis, said Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board member Thomas Hoenig. "The behavior and practices leading to ...

Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc., talks about the impact of Federal Reserve monetary policy on the housing market. Miller speaks with Tom Keene and Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance.” Source: Bloomberg, Sept. 18

Fed's Fisher Says Housing Market Leading US Economic Recovery Businessweek Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the housing market is leading the U.S. economic recovery, which he said hasn't been assisted much by the Fed's purchases of bonds. "The housing market is on the move," Fisher said today on ...

Kansas City Fed President Esther George said she opposed the central bank's latest bond-buying effort, saying it risks higher inflation and distortions in the market, the Daily Oklahoman reported Wednesday on its website.

The Federal Reserve's aggressive easing policies have had plenty of critics, but now there could be a new enemy - Wall Street's high frequency traders.

One in six Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans continued to be delinquent in August as the total delinquency rate eased slightly to 16.35 percent. This was due to modest declines across all delinquency categories.

Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo Challenged on $73 Billion in RMBS Bloomberg Holders of $73 billion in residential mortgage securities issued by Morgan Stanley (MS) and Wells Fargo (WFC) & Co. say the two firms failed to perform their duties as servicers, creating a default. A notice to the banks covers more than $5 billion of Morgan ... and more »

Should Mortgage Rates Already Be at 2.8 Percent?<br/>http://www.cnbc.com//id/49084117

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Applications for home mortgages dipped last week, though demand for refinancings rose as mortgage rates fell to a record low, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Europe must aim for full-blown unity which would see monetary and political union entwined with a currency union rivaling the United States, the U.K. and Japan, analysts told CNBC Wednesday.