News

Distressed inventory is on the decline, but the number of months it will take to clear these distressed homes from the market is on the rise. According to the latest report from Morningstar Credit Ratings, distressed inventory among non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities dropped 20 percent to 891,000 properties as of September. However, Morningstar says it will take 49 months to work through this inventory given current market dynamics. That's 11 months longer than the assessment in 2012.

ProLender Solutions, Inc., a provider of paperless mortgage lending software, announced it has added flood, fraud, and Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS) services to its existing interface with QuestSoft's Compliance EAGLE platform. With the expanded services, ProLender users have a simpler method to verify flood certifications, fraud compliance, and NMLS license information prior to closings.

Fixed mortgage rates increased sharply this week while reports on adjustable-rate mortgages were mixed. Freddie Mac puts the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 4.46 percent for the week ending December 5, up from 4.29 percent last week. Bankrate's weekly national survey showed a rise of 11 basis points for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to 4.55 percent. Economists pinned the increases on encouraging growth in new home sales and private jobs.

CoreLogic and the Urban Institute have formed a strategic alliance to power further economic and social policy research, the two groups announced. Through the alliance, CoreLogic's data will be used to power the research conducted by the Urban Institute's newly formed Housing Finance Policy Center.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the holding company of Fifth Third Bank and its former CFO with improper accounting of commercial real estate loans during the financial crisis. Fifth Third will pay $6.5 million to settle the charges. Former CFO Daniel Poston must pay a $100,000 penalty and has been suspended from practicing as an accountant for any publicly traded or SEC-regulated company.

In a report released this week, Clear Capital linked high levels of distressed sales activity with high levels of home price appreciation, something that may seem out of the ordinary. However, in a conversation with DS News Wednesday, the company's VP of research and analytics explained that this trend is in keeping with the ""first-in-first-out"" recovery the nation has been experiencing over the past 18 months.

The former banking regulator overseeing the National Mortgage Settlement has released a summary of the latest reports he filed with a federal court in Washington, D.C. The reports detail the performance of five major servicers in meeting the terms of the agreement reached with 49 state attorneys general and federal officials. Joseph Smith says he's confirmed six fails in the first quarter of 2013 and one in the second quarter.

Hudson & Marshall will auction more than 150 single-family properties for the FDIC using a specially tailored version of the company's online and offline auction process. Five separate auctions will take place from December 4–10 on properties located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Independent mortgage bankers are a growing segment and they're poised to take over even more market share as larger institutions trim their mortgage businesses. The five biggest banks were responsible for 53.2 percent of new mortgage activity in the United States in 2012, down from nearly two-thirds in 2010. According to a recent FBR Capital Markets forecast, that share could shrink to 40 percent by 2014.

Consumer sentiment rebounded in November, though Americans haven't yet forgotten the government shutdown that brought confidence down in October. The Index of Consumer Sentiment, a joint measure tracked by the University of Michigan and Thomson Reuters, rose to 75.1 for the final November tally, making up some of the ground lost in October, when it dropped to 73.2. Last year, the index was measured at 82.7.