Market Studies

The nation's unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent during the month of November, as employers added 120,000 new jobs to their payrolls, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday. By the government's calculations, the unemployment rate declined by 0.4 percentage point from 9.0 percent reported in October to hit its lowest level since March of 2009. Employment assessments for both October and September were revised upward. Analysts were expecting the economy to add 125,000 new jobs last month, but the rate to hold at 9.0 percent.

Data released by Lender Processing Services (LPS) Thursday shows mortgage delinquencies are continuing to decline, now nearly 30 percent below their January 2010 peak. Loans in the process of foreclosure, on the other hand, are steadily rising. LPS says foreclosure inventories reached an all-time high at the end of October, making up 4.29 percent of all active mortgages. The average days delinquent for loans in foreclosure extended as well during the month, setting a new record of 631 days since last payment.

Fixed mortgage rate averages remain near their all-time historic lows, fortifying high levels of homebuyer affordability throughout the country. Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has averaged at or below 4.00 percent for five consecutive weeks now, while the 15-year fixed has hovered around 3.30 percent. Adjustable-rate mortgages ticked down slightly this week, averaging new record lows for the second straight week.

The Federal Reserve released a new market-gauging rendition of its Beige Book Wednesday. The publication recounts signs of slow to moderate economic growth across 11 of the 12 Fed districts. The St. Louis district was the lone dissenter, reporting a decline in economic activity. Residential real estate activity overall was described as ""sluggish,"" while commercial real estate activity was depicted as ""lackluster"" across most of the nation. Mortgage refinancing, however, was said to have grown at a rapid pace.

The National Association of Realtors' (NAR) pending home sales index reported strong positive movement over the month of October, rising 10.4 percent from September. The index, which measures sales contracts but not closings, is also 9.2 percent above its rate a year ago. NAR's chief economist Lawrence Yun says the market volatility inflicted by the homebuyer tax credit last year is now past. Thus, the monthly and year-over-year increase in sales contracts is a positive indication for the market.

Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), has announced the appointments of Richard B. Hornsby, as FHFA's COO and Jon Greenlee as the agency's deputy director of the division of enterprise regulation. Hornsby served at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for 26 years, holding a variety of senior level management and banking supervision positions. Greenlee joins FHFA from KPMG LLP, where he was the managing director in the financial services regulatory advisory practice.

The depreciation of home values over the past half-decade has left millions of mortgage borrowers owing more than their home is worth -- 10.7 million, according to CoreLogic. The company's latest negative equity study found 22.1 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage were underwater as of the end of September. That's down from 22.5 percent - or 10.9 million - at the end of the second quarter, but CoreLogic says the number remains high and makes borrowers more vulnerable to economic shocks such as job loss or illness.

Home prices rose in the third quarter of 2011, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) house price index released Tuesday. The index is calculated using home sales price information from Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-acquired mortgages. It rose 0.2 percent between the second and third quarters. Even with the marginal uptick during the summer months, FHFA's gauge shows that over the past year, home prices have fallen 3.7 percent when compared to the third quarter of 2010.

While incidences of mortgage fraud have remained steady over the past six quarters overall, submissions of fraudulent employment/income information are on the rise, according to the latest Mortgage Fraud Risk Index by Interthinx. Employment/income fraud on mortgage applications increased 8.8 percent during the third quarter of 2011. The sharp turns in this category of fraud throughout the past few years reveal certain market occurrences.

The national reading of Standard & Poor's closely watched Case-Shiller index registered a 3.9 percent decline during the third quarter of this year when compared to the same period in 2010. That's an improvement over the 5.8 percent decline posted in the second quarter, but S&P described home prices as weakening as the third quarter came to an end. The national index rose by only 0.1 percent from the second quarter. Three cities posted new index lows as of the end of September - Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.