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Forty-one states and the District of Columbia experienced month-over-month declines in their unemployment rate, while 43 states and the District of Columbia saw year-over-year decreases in unemployment for November, according to the Regional and State Employment and Unemployment November 2014 report released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The majority of investors who bought homes at auction last month intend to hold onto them as a source of rental income, according to a report from real estate marketplace Auction.com. Isolating online buyers, Auction.com found a preference in the group toward renting rather than flipping, though responses differed by region: Renting was easily was preferred choice for properties in the Midwest and South, barely edged out flipping in the West, and was less popular than flipping in the Northeast.

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.

With Christmas just one week away, RealtyTrac has released a list of the nicest and naughtiest U.S. housing markets based on a number of factors, including foreclosure rate, crime ratings, unemployment rate, school scores, housing affordability, and sex offenders per capita. RealtyTrac found the "nicest" housing market in the U.S. to be Cary, North Carolina, and the "naughtiest" to be Milwaukee, Wisconsin, based on those metrics. Cary was chosen as the nicest housing market based on the city's low unemployment by county rate (4.40 percent), sex offender per capita rate (0.021 percent, or an average of 2.12 sex offenders for every 10,000 people), low foreclosure inventory (0.17 percent, or 17 foreclosures for every 1,000 housing units), total crime index (20.1 percent, for a crime rating of A), average elementary school score for 2013 (1.0979) and home affordability, or the percentage of median income to buy median-priced homes (21.38 percent).

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."

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.

The possibility of a high return on investment has given institutional investors the opportunity and motivation to cash out, leaving many to wonder about the future of the single-family rental industry and how it would be affected in areas with a high concentration of single-family homes purchased as rentals, should investors sell off in large quantities.

The upcoming year is expected to bring continuing improvements in the market for residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), according to one forecast.