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LPS: Rate of New Problem Loans Approaching Pre-Crisis Levels

The rate of new loans that rolled into serious delinquency fell below 1 percent for the first time since 2007, Lender Processing Services (LPS) reported Monday. The new problem loan rate--defined as seriously delinquent mortgages that were current six months ago--inched down toward pre-crisis levels to 0.84 percent in March. The new problem loan rate averaged 0.55 percent from 2000 to 2004. As expected, when categorizing borrowers by equity position, LPS found borrowers with higher levels of negative equity tended to have higher new problem loan rates.

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Fourth Round of Foreclosure Review Checks Sent, Bringing Total to 3.9M

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced the fourth round of checks from the foreclosure review settlement was sent Friday, May 3. The most recent batch includes 233,404 checks totaling more than $224 million, which brings the overall total to 3.9 million checks valued at $3.4 billion. As of May 2, more than 1.8 million recipients have cashed or deposited nearly $1.7 billion in checks from the foreclosure agreement reached in January between federal regulators and 13 servicers.

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Need for Government Guarantee in GSEs’ Multifamily Business

Without a government guarantee, Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's multifamily businesses would be less viable and ""have little inherent value,"" according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the entities' conservator. As the FHFA works toward its goal of winding down the GSEs' presence in the market, the conservator required each GSE to determine whether its multifamily business could operate without a government guarantee. Both GSEs suggest without a government guarantee, their multifamily units would not be able to support affordable housing programs.

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Cuomo Announces Special Program for Sandy Victims

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are offering a relief program to victims of Superstorm Sandy who were current on their mortgage before the storm, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced in a release Thursday. According to the release, the program is in response to letters the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) sent in April, which urged for a change in what Cuomo's administration called ""restrictive"" guidelines that could lead to a spike in mortgage payments for Sandy victims.

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Commentary: Driving With No Speedometer

Imagine if someone removed the speedometer from your car and then put limits on how fast or slow you could drive. That's what 11 House members are doing with legislation which would prohibit the Census Bureau from any data collection except for the decennial headcount of Americans. The impact of the bill HR 1638 would be to eviscerate and effectively eliminate the monthly employment situation report that produces, among other things, the unemployment rate as well as a host of other bits of data about the economy. The sponsors of the bill must believe that if we don't count unemployment it won't exist.

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Payrolls Up 165k in April; Unemployment Rate Drops to 7.5%

The economy added 165,000 jobs in April--rebounding from a weak report for March--and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.5.percent, its lowest level since December 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Economists had forecast payrolls would grow by 153,000, and that the unemployment rate would remain at 7.6 percent. Payroll growth for March, originally reported at 88,000, was revised upward to 138,000, and February was revised to 332,000 from 268,000.

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Fixed Rates Move into Record-Low Territory

Mortgage rates continued to creep down near record lows this week, according to reports from Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com. Rates fell all around in Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ending May 2. According to the weekly survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.35 percent (0.7 point) this week, down from 3.40 percent last week. The all-time low average is 3.31 percent, set the week of November 21, 2012. For the second week in a row, the 15-year FRM reached a new low, falling to 2.56 percent (0.7 point).

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GSE Reminds Servicers of Default-Related Legal Services Requirements

In a notice Thursday, Freddie Mac encouraged servicers to prepare for new requirements for default-related legal services that will take effect in less than a month. Under the new requirement, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac servicers must select qualified law firms by June 1 to handle all new referrals of default-related legal services, such as foreclosures, loss mitigation, bankruptcy, and related litigation.

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First-Time Jobless Claims Drop to 5-Year Low

First-time claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending April 27 dropped 18,000 to 324,000, the lowest level in more than five years, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected claims to increase to 354,000 initial claims. Initial jobless claims for the week ending April 20 were revised up to 344,000 from the originally reported 342,000.

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Report: More than 1 in 4 Working Renters Face Severe Housing Costs

While home affordability has reached record high levels, for renters, housing cost burdens have been steadily increasing. According to the annual Housing Landscape report from the Center for Housing Policy, 26.4 percent of working renters spent more than half of their household income on housing costs in 2011. The share is an increase from 2008 when 22.8 percent of working renters had a severe housing cost burden. CHP provided two reasons the burden of renting has grown: falling incomes and rising rental housing costs. For example, the report found the median housing cost for working renters rose nearly six percent between 2008 and 2011, yet median incomes fell more than three percent.

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