mortgage crisis

Mortgage giant Fannie Mae says it made $2.7 billion in the first quarter, the first time it has had a net income gain since it was taken over by the government during the 2008 financial crisis.

When Warren Buffett announced in August that he would spend $5 billion to snap up Bank of America shares, investors cheered. Surely this must mean that we've seen the end of the bad news from America's biggest bank, right? Wrong. So did the Oracle of Omaha blunder?

Here's more evidence that the foreclosure crisis has changed the way we think about home ownership's place in the American dream. Nearly half of those polled in a newly released survey said that owning a home today was a "nightmare." But not all polls reflect such a pessimistic view.

Bank of America did the right thing this week, nixing its notorious $5 a month debit card fee before it began. But B of A can't win, and even now, financial journalists are wondering how it will find ways to nickel and dime its way back from this week's fee retreat at the expense of its customers.

The theme for Thursday is big players adjusting to a changing world: Citigroup is shutting down a major hedge fund it used for soon-to-be-banned proprietary trading, Goldman has been subpoenaed over its role in the subprime mortgage crisis, and OPEC is thinking that it might need to pump more oil.

BlackRock, the world's largest publicly traded asset management firm, recently agreed to buy back Bank of America's remaining 7% stake in the company for about $2.5 billion. Trefis looks at why Bank of America is selling, what the buyback means for BlackRock, and what the effect will be for its stock.

Billionaire. Oracle of Omaha. The most successful investor in the world. All of these are used frequently -- and accurately -- to describe Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company with upward of $130 million. Though his stock in trade is, well, stock and trade, over the...

The drop in home values caused by the mortgage crisis has resulted in one positive outcome: Prices have fallen so far that home affordability is back to pre-housing-boom levels, reports Moody's Analytics. But a quarter of households with a mortgage are underwater on their loan.

Among the state systems governing foreclosure, Hawaii has a particularly fraud-riddled, draconian process. Elderly Suzanne Bonds was unbelievably exploited by that process in 2004, but Hawaii's courts refused to help. Now, her attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

As multiple lawsuits and SEC actions progress in relation to the nation's mortgage mess, it's becoming clear that the misbehaviors of the lawyers involved at all stages were not isolated incidents: The misconduct was systemic, and it's time to start holding those lawyers accountable.