Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Mary Schapiro today announced that Kenneth Johnson has been named chief financial officer for the agency.

Johnson has been serving as acting CFO for much of the past year. The agency's CFO is responsible for leading its Office of Financial Management, which handles the budget, finance, and accounting operations for the SEC.

In the wake of the financial crisis, the companies that rate bonds have been lambasted for being asleep at the switch and for assigning rosy ratings to questionable mortgage bonds in order to win business. Those ratings companies have made numerous changes, but one thing remains the same: Issuers still "ratings shop" among firms for the most favorable opinions on deals.

The fate of ratings-shopping now hangs in the balance. The financial-regulation overhaul bill passed by the Senate on Thursday would limit the ability of bond issuers to pick firms to rate their securities. But the House version of the bill contains no such provision, and some key lawmakers have raised concerns about the idea.

The April 30 deadline for homebuyer tax credits of up to $8,000 pulled many sales forward, likely draining activity from the usually heated spring and summer months.

Economists say it will take several more months before its clear whether the market can stand on its own or retreats anew after the credit's demise.

New and existing home sales likely were robust in April as buyers raced to beat the deadline for the credit. This would follow a five-month high in pending sales of previously owned homes in March.

Investors are snapping up loans to speculative-grade companies that get paid after senior creditors, with projected returns of about 20% this year.

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Mezzanine loans give lenders a stake in companies because they blend equity with debt and investors can profit in an initial public offering when borrowings are refinanced at face value. Companies raised $58bn through IPOs this year, compared with $4.7bn in the same period last year, as buyout firms exited their investments.

Loans guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration, the US-owned mortgage insurer, may be involved in more home-purchase transactions than borrowing financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

FHA lending last quarter may have topped the combined volume of government-supported Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a home-lending market that’s still a “government-financed market,” David Stevens, the agency’s head, said today at a conference in New York, citing research by consultant Potomac Partners.

Home sellers today who are having difficulty selling in a slow market may be interested in lease-to-own as a way of encouraging a future sale and generating rental income while they wait. Would-be home purchasers who have seen their credit scores decline because of payment problems or who can't meet the higher credit scores and down payments required today are attracted to lease-to-own as a possible avenue to homeownership.

The subprime mortgage — an alternative route to homeownership — has been closed and will stay closed indefinitely.

Delinquencies declined broadly in April from March among home loans originated between 2004 and 2007, said Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, the latest sign the number of US households behind on mortgage payments appears to be leveling off.

The middle years of the decade saw the loosest underwriting standards as the housing bubble hit its apex.

Despite support from the federal government, the Hudson Valley FCU lost a battle in a New York State trial court about whether it has to pay a mortgage-recording tax.

New York Supreme Court Justice Judith Gische ruled that based on previous cases, the courts had determined that the tax is not a tax on property but a “privilege,” and therefore not part of the tax exemption granted federal credit unions under the Federal Credit Union Act. She also dismissed the claim the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause caused Hudson Valley FCU to be exempt from the tax.

Anthony Symmes spent 25 years turning himself into the largest home builder in the Chico area, but by the fall of 2006 he had a problem.

The real estate market was going under, and the 59-year-old Paradise man had 62 new homes he couldn't unload.

So, federal officials said Friday, Symmes hatched a plan with a friend, an unlicensed mortgage broker named Garret Griffith Gililland III, who had ties to one of the country's biggest mortgage and investment scams.