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The index tracks current gauges of purchase applications, payment-to-income ratios, on-time mortgages, and employment and measures them against their long-term stable ranges. A reading between 80 and 120 is considered to be a sign of a stable market.

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge ruled on Wednesday that lawsuits brought about by Wall Street investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can continue, according to media reports.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) has reintroduced bipartisan legislation that calls for more transparency from the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, according to an announcement on Paul's website. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2015, or S. 264, commonly known as Audit the Fed, calls for elimination of the restrictions placed on the Government Accountability Office (GAO)'s audits of the Fed. The bill also mandates that several divisions of the Fed be subject to Congressional oversight, including credit facilities, securities purchases, and quantitative easing activities.

Three attorneys from North Carolina-based default services firm Hutchens Law Firm were recently recognized for their work, according to announcements from the firm.

Black Knight Financial Services named a new addition to its Data and Analytics division: Chip McAvoy has joined the team as VP of emerging products and technology.

U.S. Representative Ed Royce (R-California), a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee and a member of the Capital Markets and GSE Subcommittee and the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, has introduced the Pay Back the Taxpayers Act of 2015, according to an announcement on Royce's website.

More than 18,000 homeowners in North Carolina have saved their homes as a result of a statewide foreclosure prevention effort, according to a release from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency (NCHFA).

The latest improvements in regional and state employment statistics across the United States are keeping in line with the latest drop in the nation's unemployment rate (down to 5.6 percent in December) – and in line with analysts' assessments of consistently improving economic and labor conditions.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a bulletin on Tuesday to remind supervised financial institutions of the existing regulatory requirements regarding the confidentiality of supervisory information.

December's index, which saw about 215,000 new loans added to the pool of risk-rated mortgages, was up 0.4 percentage points from the average for the prior three months and 1.1 percentage points from a year earlier, AEI said. As ever, the largest portion of risk came from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which had a risk index of 24.33 percent, up 0.2 percentage points from the prior three-month average. Following that were the Veterans Affairs index, which was at 11.5 percent, and the Fannie/Freddie index, which was 6.2 percent, just above the 6 percent threshold AEI says is "indicative of conditions conducive to a stable market."