Countrywide — once the nation’s largest home lender — agreed to the multimillion-dollar settlement more than two years after the FTC charged the lender with collecting excessive fees from borrowers who were in foreclosure. According to the article, the lender jacked up fees for property inspections and clean-ups and even charged $300 to mow the lawn on a small-track home.

Countrywide has since been taken over by Bank of America. The takeover occurred at the height of the Wall Street meltdown.

Former homeowners who were victimized are expected to be reimbursed from the proceeds. Whether it will be a windfall for the homeowners remains to be seen: federal officials have yet to determine how much money they will get or when they will get it.

Meanwhile, the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.95% this week, down from 3.97% the previous week and 4.82% from last year. This is the lowest level for the ARM since Freddie Mac started tracking it in January 2005. The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 4.02% this week, compared to 4.07% last week and 4.71% a year ago. Not since the week ending November 4, 2004 has it been this low, when it averaged 4%.

As of 12:40 p.m. today, share prices at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. took a dip, probably from the fact that both banks received civil subpoenas from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Wall Street Journal reported that these two banks, along with Deutsche Bank AG and UBS AG were subpoenaed by the SEC. This is tied to an investigation into whether banks misled investors about their participation in mortgage-bond deals that contributed to the collapse of the housing market.

In a separate story, NYS Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Andrew Cuomo is investigating eight banks — including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup — as to whether they misled bond rating companies such as Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard & Poor’s about mortgage securities, according to an Associated Press story.

Citing the rush to beat the deadline to receive the federal tax credit, Multiple Listings Services of Long Island reported that there were 3,168 homes contracted for sale on the Island during the month of April. That is a 48% jump over March 2010 and 74% over April 2009, when there were 2,133 homes and 1,816 homes under contract, respectively. Median home prices in April were $400,000 in Nassau and $325,000 in Suffolk, lower than the 12-month average of $402,618 in Nassau and $326,063 in Suffolk.