Daily Dose

Three financial institutions – Citigroup Global Markets, Goldman Sachs, and UBS Securities – have agreed to a settlement for $235 million with a pension fund that bought Residential Capital to resolve allegations of fraud on the part of the underwriters involving mortgage-backed securities, according to media reports.

As the size of Bank of America's delinquent loans portfolio is shrinking, so is the megabank's workforce – late last week, the bank announced that it was laying off 250 employees from its delinquent mortgage loan division in its headquarters city of Charlotte, North Carolina.

With a little help from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), American consumers can overcome the single biggest obstacle to homeownership – saving for a down payment – and increase their savings to a level that will allow them to finally own a home.

With the nation's homeownership rates similar to those of 50 years ago, the foreclosure rate is significantly higher compared to the early 1960s. The main reason for the increase in foreclosure risk while the homeownership rate remains little changed is leverage, according to CoreLogic chief economist Sam Khater. The economist noted that leverage remains unaddressed by those responsible for initiating housing policy, and he recommended in his study that they may want to consider the ability to manage leverage in order to obtain financial stability in the residential housing market.

While the Obama Administration is touting monthly job gains consistently averaging more than 200,000 and a labor market that they say is at its healthiest level since the turn of the century, at least one analyst says that the recently reported national unemployment rate of 5.6 percent may not be telling the complete story.

Speaking at Thursday's House Judiciary Committee hearing entitled "Oversight of the Justice Department’s Mortgage Lending Settlements," some lawmakers criticized the federal government for using little or none of the $36 billion in recent mortgage backed-securities settlements with big banks to help foreclosure victims.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced on Monday that he plans to introduce an expanded version of the bill he proposed last year reduce the number of zombie properties in the state.

Seattle-based real estate and home-related marketplace Zillow announced Friday that it expects to close the acquisition of San Francisco-based online real estate site Trulia by February 17, following the announcement of the conclusion of a Federal Trade Commission investigation.

Three of the nation's largest mortgage lenders have put sizable packages of nonperforming and reperforming mortgage loans on the market for investors to buy, according to a release from New York-based loan broker Mission Capital Advisors. The loans being put on the market are worth a combined $4.5 billion, Mission Capital said. Bank of America has put up approximately $2.56 billion worth of delinquent debt for sale, including nonperforming loans, reperforming mortgages (those in which the borrower was 90 days or more behind but has resumed making payments), and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), according to Mission Capital.

A survey conducted among economists by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on economic growth in the United States released on Friday revealed that predictions have been revised upward for the labor market – which means good news for the economy and for housing recovery.