The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its monthly House Price Index (HPI) on Thursday, showing yet another decline in U.S. home prices. According to the HPI, prices fell 0.2 percent on a seasonally-adjusted basis from January to February. And for the twelve months ending in February, prices fell 3.4 percent. As a result of this continued decrease, the index is now 13.3 percent below its April 2007 peak.

Continuing what's been a common trend, both existing-home and condo sales in Florida rose in March, Florida Realtors reported Thursday. Existing-home sales increased 24 percent from last year and jumped 37 percent from February. In addition, existing-condo sales surged 63 percent from March 2009 and soared 40.6 percent from February.

The housing market is heating up in Illinois. According to a report released Thursday by the Illinois Association of Realtors (IAR), statewide home sales continued to increase in March, and median prices remained relatively unchanged. In March 2010, Illinois home sales--including single-family homes and condos--totaled 9,478 transactions, up 32.8 percent from the same month last year. This marked the seventh consecutive month that statewide home sales have increased on a year-over-year basis.

For all of 2009, commercial and multifamily mortgage origination volume tumbled 46 percent to $82.3 billion, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported Thursday. The associaiton said decreases were seen across most property types and investor groups, led by reductions in loans intended for credit companies, REITS, mortgage REITs, investment funds, commercial mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, and other asset-backed security conduits.

In response to the notable first quarter profits reported by Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, the Association of Mortgage Investors (AMI) released a statement saying these four banks need to stop shifting their mortgage losses to investors in first-lien mortgages and confront their conflicts of interest. While the big banks have aggressively modified first mortgage debt, AMI says they have done little to nothing on second liens. As a result, homeowners remain deeply in debt with second mortgages that exceed the current value of their home.

On Tuesday, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) announced the promotion of Josh Denney to VP of public policy. In his new position, Denney will be responsible for the day-to-day management of MBA's single-family residential mortgage public policy development, including the association's team of residential experts, and he will assist with the outreach to key stakeholders.

The Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) announced Tuesday that it guaranteed $22.7 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in March. Total single-family issuance for March was more than $22 billion. Ginnie Mae II single-family pools lead the way with nearly $14 billion in issuance, while Ginnie Mae I single-family pools totaled nearly $8 billion. In addition, Ginnie Mae's multifamily MBS issuance was nearly $828 million.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh (FHLBank Pittsburgh) recently announced that it is contributing $500,000 to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) to assist the agency in its foreclosure prevention efforts. This grant will allow PHFA to reach more homeowners under its Homeowners' Equity Recovery Opportunity (HERO) program, which aims to help borrowers not eligible for a traditional mortgage refinance product, due to credit issues or owing more on their home that its current appraised value.

In a sign of stabilization in the U.S. real estate market, home price reductions levels in April 2010 plummeted 26 percent from the same month last year, San Francisco-based Trulia, Inc., reported Wednesday. According to the report, 20 percent of current home listings had been reduced at least once as of April 1, 2010, down from 27 percent in April 2009.

In the first quarter of 2010, Wells Fargo earned $2.5 billion, or $0.45 per common share, according to the San Francisco-based bank's earnings report released Wednesday. Wells Fargo said all business segments contributed to the strong earnings results. The bank specifically pointed to improvements in home retention efforts and credit quality, which it described as having ""turned the corner.""