Daily Dose

While existing-home sales have seen solid gains in 2015, reaching levels not seen since before the crisis seven years ago, the rate of increase may be slowing down, according to data released by Auction.com on Tuesday.

Mortgage fraud risk is being lowered by changes in residential origination practices and new regulation. According to a Fitch Ratings report released Tuesday, since the financial crisis, risk of fraud and misrepresentation has declined. "A key driver behind the poor performance ...

The new rule would limit the maximum period for filing insurance claims with the FHA, which would limit access to credit. In addition the rule would also change policies concerning curtailment of interest and disallowance of certain expenses incurred by servicers.

According to Morningstar, the retention rate for month-to-month leases improved for most of the transactions in July after dropping in 15 out of 17 transactions in June. The retention rates of scheduled lease expirations remained within Morningstar's expectations for July, in the mid-70s. 

The serious delinquency rate on single-family mortgage loans backed by Fannie Mae dropped another three basis points down to 1.63 percent in July and is now well below its pre-crisis level.

Freddie Mac's monthly Insight & Outlook report for August 2015 released Monday found that a substantial amount of human judgment is required in addition to statistics when determining if a housing market is overvalued or when home prices are likely to drop.

Also according to AEI's July report, 71 percent of Agency purchase loans had down payments of 5 percent or less, and 25 percent of them had DTI ratios greater than the QM limit of 43 percent. The median FICO score for first-time buyers was 709, a bit below the median for all individuals in the United States.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and 14 other organizations have written an open letter to the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate urging them to pass legislation that would provide a cushion to prevent another taxpayer bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fitch Ratings examined the Dodd-Frank Act Stress Test process and results, finding that steps taken to gather the data for mid-tier regional banks ($10 billion-$50 billion in assets) are a positive development.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) launched its consumer complaint database in July 2012, one year after beginning operations, and it began publishing complaint narratives in June 2015. Some financial companies expressed concern over the Bureau's publishing of complaint narratives ...