Daily Dose

According to the NAR's Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), contract signings decreased 1.4 percent to 109.4 in August, down from 110.9 in July. However, the index is still 6.1 percent higher that 103.1 recorded in August 2014.

REO inventory for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae dropped by 14 percent during Q2, down to 86,515 for the two GSEs combined, as property dispositions continued to outpace property acquisitions. It was the first time the REO inventory for the GSEs has been below 100,000 since 2009.

Driven by a a trend of increasing household equity, the total value of the residential housing market nationwide rose to $22.7 trillion as of the end of Q2 2015, according to the Urban Institute's Housing Finance at a Glance report for September 2015 released Friday.

JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bancorp all experienced yet another decrease in their third-party mortgage servicing portfolios in the second quarter of 2015.

In the second estimate for Q2 released in August, real GDP grew at an annual rate of 3.7 percent; in the "advance estimate" released at the end of July, it grew at a rate of 2.3 percent. In the third and final estimate for Q1, GDP growth was a mere 0.6 percent, way below expectations.

As Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Hensarling has been a major figure in housing finance reform for almost three years. He has been an outspoken opponent of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, having recently chaired a series of three hearings in the Committee on the impact of the controversial law five years since it was enacted.

The serious delinquency rate on Freddie Mac-backed loans is now seven basis points lower than it was in November 2008 at the start of the financial crisis (1.52 percent) and nearly 2 percentage points lower than the national serious delinquency rate reported by CoreLogic for July 2015 (3.4 percent).

The delinquency rate, which includes residential homes that are 30 days or more overdue on mortgage payments but not in foreclosure, tumbled by 18 percent year-over-year in August down to 4.83 percent, the largest over-the-year decline since May 2011, according to Black Knight.

According to the announcement, the bank was allegedly found in direct violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which prohibits creditors from discriminating against applicants in credit transactions on the basis of characteristics such as race, color, and national origin.

On Wednesday, September 30, from 2 to 3 p.m. Eastern, WALZ Compliance Solutions will host a webinar titled "Preventing Risk When Notifying Borrowers: Pennsylvania Act 6 and Act 91 Notices."