The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported Wednesday that mortgage applications for refinancing dropped 21.6 percent for the week ending November 26, as interest rates continued to head upward. It marked the third weekly decrease for the refinance index, which has hit its lowest level since June 2010. MBA's measurement of loan applications for home purchases rose 1.1 percent from one week earlier and, in contrast, is at its highest level since the beginning of May 2010.

The Federal Reserve's latest rendition of its popular Beige Book shows that economic conditions across the country continued to improve. Housing markets, though, remain ""depressed,"" according to district contacts in the field. Many brokers, most notably in Florida, reported that recent servicer moratoriums on distressed sales led to a stall in activity. Areas in the Dallas and New York districts noted weakened demand for lower-priced properties but increased interest for high-end homes.

Freddie Mac said Wednesday that it has ordered all foreclosure evictions involving occupied single-family and 2-4 unit properties to be suspended from December 20, 2010 to January 3, 2011. The policy applies to all homes with Freddie Mac mortgages. It's become a common practice for lenders to temporarily halt evictions during the holiday season. Fannie Mae and most other large mortgage providers are expected to follow suit.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have seen a steady falloff in the rate of loans 90 or more days overdue since early this year, but their latest figures show the rate continuing to head down for one, up for the other. Both GSEs have dialed up the pressure lately for big banks to buy back bad loans. But the lenders themselves are doing their own dialing up, only it's in the form of stronger resistance to repurchase requests. The two mortgage giants are planning to implement new lending guidelines and fee structures for riskier loans.

Although economists say the country would be in far worse shape without it, the federal government's $700 billion bailout package approved by Congress in October 2008 was widely criticized at the time for the cost taxpayers would be forced to bear. That projected price tag, though, has been steadily declining as the financial sector has found firmer footing. The Congressional Budget Office now puts the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) at just over 3 percent of the $700 billion initially allocated - $25 billion.

Home prices in the United States fell 2.0 percent in the third quarter of 2010, breaking what had been a trend of fairly steady gains since early last year, Standard & Poor's reported Tuesday. The company's closely watched national index had recorded quarter-over-quarter increases in four of the last five three-month periods, including a 4.7 percent rise in the second quarter of this year. Many analysts are expecting that dreaded double dip to set in before next spring.

The Texas-based valuation firm eMortgage Logic (EML) said Tuesday that the company has aligned itself with what EML describes as a ""leading real estate analytics innovator"" to provide clients with a complimentary home price trends chart. This visual aid will now appear on all broker price opinions (BPOs) to illustrate the dynamics of the subject market's volatility.

The Government Accountability Office just completed a study of what is called ""bank walkaways"" - when a lender initiates foreclosure but then doesn't complete the process because the cost outweighs expected proceeds from the property's sale. Officials argue the practice intensifies market deterioration and complicates stabilization efforts. But the agency found that abandoned foreclosures are rare - representing less than 1 percent of vacant homes between January 2008 and March 2010 - but concentrated in specific areas of the country.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have instructed their selling agents to move forward with transactions involving foreclosed properties in cases where sales were suspended due to potential problems with the legal paperwork. The GSEs were forced to temporarily halt the sale of certain properties when news surfaced that some of the nation's largest servicers had been employing so-called robo-signers. Now that case reviews have uncovered no evidence of improper foreclosures, Fannie and Freddie are moving to proceed with REO sales.

The economic advisory team in place in Washington continues to thin. Within the next few weeks, the Treasury Department will reportedly lose two key officials, Michael Barr and Matthew Kabaker. The president's National Economic Council will also lose its second-in-command, Diana Farrell. All three individuals were instrumental in crafting the administration's response to the housing and economic crises and helped to shape the overarching financial reform bill signed into law this summer.