Confidence among U.S. home builders rose in May — a time of rising home prices despite increased costs of building materials — following several months of declines, CNBC reported.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index posted a three-point gain to 44 from the 41 recorded in April. A number over 50 on the index shows that a majority of the 341 builders surveyed see market conditions as good, rather than poor. [more]

Eric Schneiderman

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman today announced his plans to sue Bank of America and Wells Fargo for allegedly violating the terms of the national mortgage settlement — the $26 billion deal that resolved wide-ranging litigation over the banks’ supposed foreclosure abuses, HousingWire reported.

The suit would be the first since the agreement was signed in October 2012, according to Schneiderman’s office. [more]

Got a beef with your mortgage company or loan servicer? Lots of people do, and thousands of them have been turning to a Federal complaint hotline for action — or at least a quick response from the lender. [more]

Discoveries of misconduct among the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, prior to and during the foreclosure crisis, are continuing to add up, with the revelation that the nation’s biggest banks wrongfully foreclosed on more than 700 members of the U.S. military, the New York Times reported. [more]

The record mortgage profits reported by big lenders like  Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are drying up, as increased competition hold rates near all time lows. Profits made from mortgage backed securities are being undercut by falling bond prices, decreasing profits by as much as 40 percent from last quarter, according to Compass Point Research and Trading estimates cited by Bloomberg News. [more]

Wells Fargo’s signature stagecoach

Wells Fargo has remained at the top of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s ranking of commercial and multifamily mortgage servicers, the New York Observer reported. With $429.1 billion in U.S. master and primary servicing assets as of Dec. 31, the bank is followed by PNC Real Estate/Midland Loan Services ($337.6 billion), Berkadia Commercial Mortgage ($197.3 billion), Bank of America Merrill Lynch ($112.5 billion) and KeyBank Real Estate Capital (101.2 billion) in the annual ranking, according to the Observer. [more]

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke

The Federal Reserve’s housing policies have helped steer the four largest home loan lenders back to recovery, Bloomberg News reported. Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and U.S. Bancorp reported $24.4 billion in revenues from home lending in 2012 and expenses of just over $21.7 billion for settlements and loan repurchases, according to Bloomberg News data. Total loan originations for the year were $1.75 trillion, the highest levels since 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The increased activity was spurred by the Fed’s policy of pressing interest rates down, which led to lower borrowing costs and a spur of refinancing activity. … [more]

Tim Sloan

Wells Fargo, tapping into a refinancing market invigorated by low interest rates, announced Friday that its fourth-quarter profits totaled $5.1 billion — a 24 percent increase over last quarter, the New York Times reported. Wells Fargo reported earnings of $0.91 a share, exceeding the expectations of analysts, who had thought the San Francisco, Calif.-based bank would earn $0.89 a share. Revenues were also up seven percent from last quarter to $21.95 billion. The growth was spurred in large part by the bank’s consumer lending business, as borrowers took advantage of record low interest rates to refinance their mortgages…. [more]

A home under construction

Builder confidence for newly built, single-family homes posted its seventh consecutive monthly gain in November, according to the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo. The November score comes in at 46, marking the U.S. housing market index’s highest point reached since May 2006. Scores above the 50 mark denote positive builder sentiments on the 1-100 scale.

According to CNBC, builder confidence, along with home sales figures, shows that the housing market recovery is both real and strengthening (see video after the jump)…. [more]

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf

In an attempt to avoid future lawsuits, Wells Fargo has sent thousands of customers unsolicited refund checks, with a catch: If deposited, borrowers cannot later sue the lender for being placed into excessively expensive loans, the Los Angeles Times reported. As many as 10,000 Wells Fargo borrowers — those who took out loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration from 2009 through 2011 — received checks in the mail this week. These tend to be borrowers with weak credit or those who cannot afford the 20 percent down payments required for conventional loans. [more]