Market Studies

Credit unions found reason to celebrate recently, with the National Credit Union Administration revealing that unions saw their biggest quarterly push in lending since fall 2008. According to the report, released on Friday, credit unions signed off on $581.7 billion in outstanding total loans over the second quarter. The uptick marks the fifth straight quarterly increase for total loans and helped credit unions originate 1.7 percent more home loans from the quarter before.

The slowing pace of workouts hasn't stopped CMBS special servicer volume from falling, Fitch Ratings reported. According to Fitch's weekly U.S. CMBS Market Trends newsletter, the balance of loans in special servicing as of June 30 was $80.5 billion, a drop from $83.1 billion at the end of 2011 and $85.6 billion in June 2011. This news comes despite a slowdown in resolutions in the year's first half, with 1,242 loans resolved in that time (compared to 1,556 in the first half of 2011).

While fraud in the financial services sector declined year-over-year from April through June, mortgage fraud increased, according to the latest report from Experian, a global information services company based in London. Thirty-nine out of every 10,000 mortgage applications were fraudulent during the April to June period, up from 32 out of 10,000 in the same period last year, according to Experian. Twenty-four percent of all attempted mortgage fraud cases were the result of individuals misrepresenting their credit by hiding certain information.

Low interest rates and better debt management brought mortgage delinquencies down in Q2, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Wednesday. The New York Fed released its latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, revealing that the delinquency rate for mortgages declined from the first quarter to 6.3 percent. Meanwhile, an estimated 256,000 consumers had a foreclosure notation added to their credit reports, the lowest number since mid-2007.

A study completed by the University of Miami School of Business Administration suggests that fragile market bubbles could be prevented if the public were aware of how assets are valued. The research, set to be published in the Journal of Financial and Qualitative Analysis, analyzed China's 2007 stock market. The study found that stocks with a bigger amount of analyst coverage experienced significantly smaller bubbles than those that weren't covered as well.

Prices went up for foreclosure-related sales on a quarterly and yearly basis, with the annual increase marking the first rise in two years, according to RealtyTrac's Q2 foreclosure sales report. The average price for foreclosure-related sales stood at $170,040, a 6 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 7 percent hike from the second quarter of 2011. The annual increase is the first since the second quarter of 2010 and the biggest yearly increase since the fourth quarter of 2006.

After a month of weekly increases, mortgage rates followed Treasury bond yields down this week. Freddie Mac reported that the 30-year fixed averaged 3.59 percent (0.6 point) for the week ending August 30, down from 3.66 percent in the previous week's survey. Bankrate's survey showed that the 30-year fixed average took a substantial tumble, falling to 3.80 percent from 3.91 percent before.

Personal income rose $42.3 billion in July but consumer spending increased $46.0 billion, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday. The increase in income 0.3 percent topped expectations of a 0.3 percent boost, and the 0.04 percent increase in spending also met economist expectations.

First time claims for unemployment were unchanged at 374,000 for the week ended August 25, the Labor Department reported Thursday after revising upward by 2,000 the prior week's originally reported 372,000 claims. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected 370,000 initial claims.

The nation's economy expanded gradually from early July through mid-August, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday in its periodic Beige Book. The description of the economy, drawn from reports from each of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts, differed from the usual tone of Beige Books, which have recently described economic growth as ""modest"" or ""moderate."" Housing markets across most districts, the Beige Book said, showed ""signs of improvement, with sales and construction continuing to increase.""