Daily Dose

The OCC Mortgage Metrics Report, Third Quarter 2014, released Friday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), showed improvement in the performance of first-lien mortgages serviced by seven national banks and one federal savings association. The report found that out of a portfolio totaling 23.6 million loans with a combined unpaid principal balance of about $4.0 billion (about 46 percent of residential mortgages in the U.S.), the percentage of current and performing mortgages increased both quarter-over-quarter (from 92.9 percent to 93.0 percent) and year-over-year (from 91.4 percent to 93.0 percent) in Q3.

Foreclosure deed filings are down in Rhode Island for the third quarter of 2014, according to a report published by HousingWorks RI at Roger Williams University on Thursday. In all, 364 foreclosure deeds were filed in Rhode Island in Q3, down from the 382 filed in Q2 2014, a decline of 5 percent, according to HousingWorks RI. Year-to-date through the end of Q3 2014, however, residential foreclosure deed filings ticked up by 2 percent in the Ocean State from the same period in 2013 from 1,170 to 1,193.

Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research Group predicts in its December 2014 Economic Outlook that the U.S. economy will strengthen heading into 2015 following an up-and-down 2014 that ended on an unspectacular note. The Group is forecasting full-year growth of 2.1 percent for 2014, a full point below 2013's rate of growth, due to the reverse in the final quarter of some unsustainable forces that boosted the economy in the third quarter. However, the Group is predicting economic growth of 2.7 percent for 2015 based on firming consumer income prospects, rising consumer and business confidence, a broadening housing recovery, and reduced fiscal headwinds.

The number of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth has fallen off by nearly half in the last two years, but third-quarter data shows millions are still close to slipping back under. By the end of Q3 2015, the company expects negative equity will drop further to a rate of 15.2 percent. While improving trends in home values and foreclosures have helped push more homeowners into positive equity positions, many are still barely afloat, possessing too little equity to realistically afford the cost of selling their home and buying a new one. Because they're essentially locked into their houses, those homeowners are unable to contribute to their local stock of for-sale homes and are stuck in the way of entry-level or move-up buyers.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro said the Department will continue to focus on its top priorities in 2015 with the $45 billion budget allotted as part of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015, despite the lack of funding for some key HUD initiatives. Among those priorities are securing sustainable housing for American individuals and families, preserving rental house assistance for poor Americans, ending homelessness, protecting people from discrimination in housing, and helping neighborhoods become more resilient from natural disasters, according to a release from HUD.

Twenty-seven senators have signed a letter addressed to Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Mel Watt asking him to reconsider the stricter membership requirements for the Federal Home Loan Banks the Agency proposed in September. The changes to membership requirements outlined by Watt in a speech at the FHLBank Director's Conference on September 2 require members to hold 1 percent of their assets in home mortgage loans (HML) on an ongoing basis, whereas the previous rule requires members to demonstrate this only at the time of their application and not at any time afterward

Freddie Mac announced Tuesday that it has obtained a number of insurance policies under its Agency Credit Insurance Structure (ACIS) in an effort to reduce risk to taxpayers in mortgage loans and further expand risk-sharing initiatives beyond capital markets. The announcement comes one week after Fannie Mae announced it was expanding the role of private capital in the mortgage market by transferring the credit risk on a pool of loans from taxpayers to a panel of domestic reinsurers.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it intends to take a slow approach to raising interest rates in the coming year, even as the economy continues to strengthen. Given the current climate, the committee hinted that it will take steps to raise short-term interest rates in 2015, though it still would not commit to a timeframe, saying only that "it will likely be appropriate to maintain ... the [current] federal funds rate for a considerable period of time."

The U.S. Senate passed a bill on Tuesday night that retroactively extends 55 tax provisions, among which are allowing deductions for mortgage insurance premium interest and tax relief on forgiven mortgage debt. The tax provisions covered by the bill, known as the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014, expired on December 31, 2013. The bill provides for a retroactive one-year extension which expires on December 30 of this year and would be effective for those filing 2014 returns next year.

Smith said his team launched an investigation in May after hearing from an employee about "serious deficiencies in Ocwen's internal review group process." The investigation included interviews with nine company executives and employees and a review of thousands of documents, he said. The monitor also said that he has taken steps to strengthen the review process of all servicers' review groups, including adding employee interviews, additional reviews at various steps in the testing process, and the establishment of an ethics hotline so that whistleblowers can easily and anonymously report concerns.