Daily Dose

Federal authorities indicted four California men Thursday in connection with a bogus loan modification program that reportedly bilked hundreds of struggling homeowners out of millions of dollars nationwide at the height of the financial crisis.

Real estate website Zillow is reportedly making moves to acquire rival site Trulia in a deal that could see the merging of two of the country's most popular online real estate resources.

The labor market has taken significant steps in the quest to return to pre-recession employment levels. Still, concerns remain among many about the quality of jobs being created. Wages have increased over the past year but at only a 2.3 percent growth rate, they lag behind the growth rate that they should be experiencing at this point in the business cycle. A change may be in the air.

The office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program announced that Jesse Litvak, a registered broker-dealer and former managing director at New York investment bank Jefferies & Co., Inc. was sentenced today to 24 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $1.75 million dollar fine in connection to his conviction for defrauding consumers trading in residential mortgage backed securities.

In a positive sign for the housing market, RealtyTrac reported Thursday a decrease nationwide in homes that were classified as “seriously underwater”, down to 9.1 million homes in the second quarter of 2014, representing 17.2 percent of all homes nationwide. The number is a decrease from the 17.4 percent of underwater homes recorded in the first quarter

Former Congressman Barney Frank testified before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services on Wednesday, arguing that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the voluminous set of regulations that followed shortly thereafter was a positive for the economy and safeguarded the American public from ever having to face an economic down turn the likes of the great recession ever again.

Trulia released the firm’s findings on how people would likely cope with having to spend less on their housing. More than anything, people downsize.

While home prices continue to decelerate on an annual basis after reaching peak speed in February, price gains did pick up slightly from April to May, according to FNC's latest price index.

One of the pet reasons for explaining the lack of demand for houses among millennials is the presence of ever-escalating student loan debts. The thinking goes that college graduates are so mired in debt that they either cannot afford to buy or are too afraid to run up more debt, and so they stay living with their parents or find cheap places to rent.

In accordance with the terms of its settlement with the federal government, JPMorgan has begun the process of providing debt forgiveness and other mortgage relief to struggling homeowners.