Daily Dose

Florida-based data and analytics firm Black Knight Financial Services has come up with a solution to identify the risk associated with mortgages that have been given "super-lien priority" status, according to an announcement from Black Knight.

One of the major complaints of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)'s critics is a lack of Congressional oversight for the Bureau. Lawmakers have re-introduced a bipartisan bill in the U.S. House of Representatives in an attempt to change that. U.S. Representative Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), along with U.S. Representative Tim Walz (D-Minnesota) re-introduced the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection-Inspector General Act of 2015, a bill that would create the position of an independent Inspector General for the CFPB.

Freddie Mac has helped nearly 1.1 million struggling homeowners either retain their homes or otherwise avoid foreclosure through a variety of means since the beginning of 2009, four months after the FHFA conservatorship began, according to the GSE's 2014 Financial Results Summary released on Thursday.

A recent study from Freddie Mac turned up some discouraging results to throw some cold water on economists' high hopes: The job fields that are expected to grow most in the coming years happen to have some of the lowest homeownership rates.

Borrowers eligible for payment will soon be receiving replacement checks for the funds they were scheduled to receive under the Independent Foreclosure Review Payment Agreements, according to an announcement from the Federal Reserve Board and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on Wednesday.

Freddie Mac will report its fourth quarter and full year 2014 financial results in a conference call with the media on Thursday, February 19, beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern time, according to an announcement from the GSE.

The nation's mortgage delinquency rate for loans 60 days or more overdue continued its steady decline in the fourth quarter of 2014, falling to 3.29 percent – representing a 14 percent drop from the same quarter in 2013 (3.84 percent), according to TransUnion's latest mortgage report.

Bank of America has begun the process of paying out $7 billion in consumer relief as part of its record $16.65 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and six states last August, according to an announcement on the settlement monitor's website. Professor Eric D. Green, independent monitor of the settlement, announced in his initial progress report since the settlement was reached six months ago that Bank of America had correctly claimed credit of approximately $8.94 million for 100 first-lien loan modifications meant to help make mortgages more affordable for struggling homeowners

Balances went up across most categories, led by a $39 billion increase in mortgage debt to a total of $8.2 trillion. Student loan debt—a commonly cited obstacle for recent college graduates interested in owning a home—followed closely, increasing $31 billion to a total of $1.2 trillion.

The nation's first mortgage default index stayed flat in January while the national composite credit default index rose slightly for the sixth straight month, according to the S&P Dow Jones Indices and S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices for January 2015 released Tuesday. According to the data, the first mortgage default index remained at 1.02 percent from December to January after experiencing its largest increase in 15 months (five basis points) from November to December. January's first mortgage default level is still 14 basis points above its lowest level of 0.88 percent, which was reached in July 2014.