Market Studies

New loans made by the nine U.S. banks with the largest unsettled government bailouts declined 35 percent from December to January, according to federal data released this week. The Treasury's monthly lending survey of the top Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) recipients with funds outstanding shows that the nine banks in the upper echelon originated approximately $36 billion in new loans during the first month of this year - the smallest total since last October.

With the expiration of several key government support programs looming, loss severities on distressed U.S. residential mortgage loans are likely to escalate, Fitch Ratings recently reported. The expiration in the coming months of both the homebuyer tax credit and the Federal Reserve's $1.25 trillion mortgage-backed securities (MBS) purchase program will increase negative pressure on home prices and loss severities.

While delinquency rates in the United States continue to reach new highs, the pace of deterioration has slowed, Lender Processing Services (LPS) said Monday. Still, company's analysts caution that the nation's housing market remains far from a full recovery. According to LPS' latest Mortgage Monitor report, nearly 7.5 million loans are in some stage of delinquency or foreclosure, with an additional one million properties in REO or post-sale foreclosure.

By grade school standards, the U.S. housing market would most likely get grounded, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting's (JBREC) monthly report card issued this week. The market research and due diligence firm gave housing an overall grade of D+. Affordability, which the firm says is probably the most important indicator of short-term housing market performance, was able to pull out a C-, but the nation's housing supply got an F.

Foreclosed homes taken back by lenders and distressed short sales accounted for nearly half of all residential home sales in California in 2009, according to a market report released this week by the California Association of Realtors. As one of the hardest-hit states by the housing downturn, the Golden State is littered with bank-owned properties and homes facing foreclosure, but the lower prices and increasing buyer appetite for these deals are helping to reduce some of California's distressed inventory.

A new survey conducted by the Title/Appraisal Vendor Management Association (TAVMA) and the annual appraisal industry survey from Coester Appraisal Group shed light on what is really happening in the appraisal industry.

The median price for single-family homes in Connecticut climbed more than 6 percent in January compared to a year earlier, while sales increased for the fourth consecutive month, according to a report from the Warren Group, which tracks the New England real estate markets.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, delinquency rates continued to increase for most commercial and multifamily mortgage investor groups, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported Thursday. Although delinquencies are still rising, MBA said earlier this week that commercial and multifamily mortgages are performing better than all other types of loans.

Marking the second consecutive week of declines, Freddie Mac reported Thursday that mortgage rates dipped once again this week. For the week ending March 11, 2010, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.95 percent with an average 0.7 point, and the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.32 percent with an avearge 0.7 point.

Foreclosure filings issued to U.S. homeowners have fallen for the second straight month. According to new data released by RealtyTrac Thursday, default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions were reported on 308,524 properties in February. That's a 2 percent decrease from January, when foreclosure activity dropped by 10 percent. February's numbers are still 6 percent above the level reported one year earlier, but RealtyTrac says it's the smallest annual increase the company has tracked since January 2006.