Realtor.com released its February Monthly Housing Trend Report, which showed an increase in listing prices as well as an increase of housing inventory. Nationally, median list price increased to 199,000 dollars, representing a 7.6 percent gain from the previous year. The median age of inventory shrunk slightly to 114 days, a decrease of .09 percent from the previous month. The report found that inventory had increased by 10.1 percent year-over-year, with approximately 1.7 million total listings.
The top five cities for median list price all reside in California, according to the report. San Francisco topped the list with a median price of $849,000, followed by Santa Barbara, San Jose, Orange County, and Ventura. The top five metros with the most available inventory were more widespread across the nation. Chicago, Illinois came in first with the most total listings at 45,998, followed by Atlanta, Georgia; Phoenix, Arizona; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Riverside-San Bernardino, California.
An audit performed by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General found that mortgage fraud wasn't prioritized as highly as claimed by the DOJ. While the FBI received $196 million to investigate mortgage fraud from 2009 to 2011, the number of FBI agents and pending investigations actually decreased. Additionally, the Attorney General reported that 530 criminal defendants had been charged, estimating losses of more than $1 billion. However, the OIG found these numbers to be inaccurate. Only 107 defendants were charged, with losses of only $95 million, not the reported $1 billion.