Market Studies

According to a new poll from the market research firm Harris Interactive, 22 percent of people with mortgages have difficulty making their monthly payments. The poll also reveals that 21 percent think they are underwater and owe more on the loan than their home is worth. Compared to the results of last year's poll, those struggling to pay their mortgage has declined by 7 percent, but the company says the improvement is deceptive since it likely reflects the fact that borrowers previously experiencing trouble have already lost their homes.

The percentage of single-family mortgage loans counted as seriously delinquent has dropped back for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to Fannie Mae's latest monthly status report, the GSE's seriously delinquent rate has declined to 4.45 percent. Freddie Mac's most recent report shows its seriously delinquent rate to have fallen to 3.78 percent. Both companies have posted steady declines for three consecutive months, and they've recently announced changes to their servicing guidelines that could impact the way delinquent loans are handled.

The nation's largest mortgage servicers foreclosed on 95,067 homes during the fourth quarter of 2010, a 49 percent drop from the number of completed foreclosures during the previous quarter, according to a new report from two regulatory agencies. Newly initiated foreclosures also decreased but by a much smaller ratio of 8 percent. Because new foreclosures outpaced completed foreclosures, the inventory of foreclosures in process increased to 1,290,253, representing 3.9 percent of all serviced loans among the largest national firms.

Treasury has released a new report on the government's foreclosure prevention efforts. In addition to the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) numbers that are regularly recounted, new this month are details on short sales and second lien modifications. As of the end of February, 4,488 homeowners completed a short sale or deed-in-lieu under the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program. Another 10,177 borrowers have HAFA agreements in place. Second-lien modifications have been provided to 16,951 homeowners.

In 2009 and 2010, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) approved salary packages totaling more than $35 million for executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The agency's Office of the Inspector General has released a report detailing the compensation levels of GSE execs for the past two years, noting that the CEOs of Fannie and Freddie together made $17 million during that period. The report points out that although the GSEs have lost billions of dollars and depend on federal support, their senior executives continue to receive multi-million dollar salaries.

Massachusetts' foreclosure petitions, the first step in the foreclosure process in the state, declined 67 percent in February when compared to a year earlier, according to the Warren Group, a Boston-based provider of real estate data. Completed foreclosures also fell sharply, dropping 44 percent on a year-over-year basis. The Warren Group called the numbers a ""remarkable turnaround,"" demonstrating a new ""go-slow attitude"" among lenders.

Employers added 216,000 jobs to their payrolls in March, according to figures released Friday morning by the U.S. Department of Labor. The national unemployment rate dropped to 8.8 percent, down from 8.9 percent in February. Analysts had been forecasting a smaller pool of new jobs and no change in the unemployment rate. Since November 2010, the jobless rate has declined by a full percentage point. The government agency's count shows there are currently 13.5 million people out of work, with 45 percent having been unemployed for 27 months or more.

A study by the credit bureau TransUnion shows that when choosing which bills they can afford to pay, consumers are more likely to pay their credit card obligations and fall behind on their mortgage payments. TransUnion says this trend has continued for the past three years, and while the number of consumers current on credit cards but delinquent on their mortgage has declined slightly, it is more than 70 percent higher than it was at the beginning of the ""Great Recession.""

Mortgage interest rates across the board edged higher this week, marking the second consecutive reporting period that they've increased. Data released by Freddie Mac Thursday shows that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 5 basis points in one week's time to 4.86 percent. The 15-year rate came in at 4.09 percent, and adjustable-rate mortgages also increased.

The industry's shadow inventory of repossessed and soon-to-be repossessed homes that aren't visible as properties for sale has contracted, according to CoreLogic. Analysis released by the company Wednesday shows that the shadow inventory of residential properties as of January 2011 fell to 1.8 million, down from 2.0 million a year earlier. For the first time, CoreLogic also examined how loan modifications and short sales could reduce shadow inventory levels.