Some mortgage firms have radically loosened their lending policies in recent years, helping fuel the house price boom.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-backed mortgage firms, have squandered a fortune promoting home-ownership among the uncreditworthy.
New subprime lending has tailed off this year as mortgage firms have, belatedly, become fussier about whom they will serve.
That guarantee became explicit during the financial crisis, when the government had to step in with billions in bailout cash to keep the mortgage firms afloat.
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Separately, the Treasury announced it would increase the mortgage firms' credit lines and might buy their shares, which have been under enormous pressure in the stock market.
James Lockhart, head of the agency, urged U.S. mortgage servicing firms--companies that process payments of loans rather than owning them outright--to adopt the plan as a national standard.
More recently, Mr. Zamansky is one of the leading litigators and opinion leaders of the subprime mortgage crisis and the related hedge fund collapses, representing both investors and mortgage borrowers who were defrauded by Wall Street firms and mortgage lenders.
Still, independent mortgage-servicing firms, some of which are not overseen by federal banking regulators, could opt out, leaving their borrowers still vulnerable to foreclosure.
You know, the underlying problem is that a lot of banks and financial firms have these mortgage-backed securities.
When the mortgage bubble burst, those firms went bust right along with it.
NewBuy is backed by the Home Builders' Federation (HBF) and the Council of Mortgage Lenders and seven construction firms - Barratt, Bellway, Bovis, Linden Homes.
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U.S. financial firms invested in mortgage backed securities on leverage.
Where is the compelling defense against the charge that government policies that subsidized chosen firms in the mortgage industry created the incentives for risk-taking that Ignatius pegs as the root cause of the problem in the first place?
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Market expectations have been rising for some form of policy easing measures, such as letting financial firms offer preferential mortgage and down payment rates, though limits on home purchases are likely to remain in effect for some time.
Last month, rival Bear Stearns, one of the biggest Wall Street firms in the mortgage securities business, disclosed billions of losses in two hedge funds it managed, largely because of subprime mortgage securities that triggered margin calls and redemptions.
In the boom times of the late 1990s, savings banks, commercial banks and insurance companies began peering over the barriers at the profits being made by investment banks, brokerage firms, and mortgage brokers, and wanted in on that too.
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The two funds' collapse also led investors to question how big firms were valuing their mortgage-backed securities.
The "cooperation agreement" applied only to the firms' ratings on mortgage securities backed by subprime and other risky loans.
Last year a group of state insurance regulators hired PIMCO to replace rating agencies in analysing mortgage-backed securities held by firms they oversee.
The program will lend taxpayer money to a select group of money managers to buy the mortgage-backed bonds from weakened financial firms.
Home lenders, thinking they would always be able to sell the loans they made to Wall Street firms for bundling together into mortgage bonds, extended credit to just about anybody.
For the moment, conforming mortgages remain stable and large firms unconnected to the home-mortgage market have yet to experience serious trouble.
In 2011, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (regulator of Freddie and Fannie) sued 17 financial firms for misrepresenting the quality of mortgage backed securities sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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These spent several trillion dollars buying subprime mortgage securities, which provided irresistible incentives for Wall Street firms churn them out.
Some of the firms placed triple-A ratings on billions of mortgage products that later imploded, helping trigger a global credit bust.
The plan would allow the Treasury to buy up mortgage-related assets from American-based companies and foreign firms with a big exposure to these illiquid assets.
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The meltdown of New Century Financial and troubles reported by other subprime residential mortgage lenders in recent weeks are prompting speculation that Wall Street firms will step in and buy the distressed companies or their loan portfolios.
Two different law firms are pushing the foreclosure -- on the same mortgage.
Bankers are also keenly aware of the difficulties facing each others' firms and other financial companies that have exposure to the mortgage markets.
The trouble is that these firms have recently insured a lot of risky debt products like mortgage-backed securities.
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