Market Studies

Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) investors led an increase in mortgage-related lawsuits during the first quarter of 2009, according to a mortgage litigation report issued through PRNewswire on Tuesday.

Dr. Dennis Capozza, founder of Ann Arbor, Michigan-based University Financial Associates (UFA), has spent the last 30 years predicting cycles in the mortgage industry. Dr. Capozza’s research and experience have been automated in a scoring system called ForeScore for more than a decade, and last week, UFA announced that lenders, investors, and regulators can now access the ForeScore system and supporting analytics via an integrated Web services platform.

ForeclosureRadar, a Web site company that tracks every California foreclosure and provides daily auction updates, has issued its monthly California Foreclosure Report for April 2009. In a reversal from the prior month, the company said, the Golden State’s foreclosure notices dropped while foreclosure sales and distressed property purchases by investors rose.

Massachusetts foreclosures dropped dramatically in April from a year ago and were also lower than March, according to a report released Thursday by the Boston-based real estate research firm The Warren Group.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey on Wednesday, which showed a slight increase in home loan activity due to a renewed uptick in the demand for refinancings.

One in every 374 housing units in the United States received a foreclosure filing in April, according to RealtyTrac’s Foreclosure Market Report released last week. April’s national foreclosure rate was the highest posted since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

Based on Demotech’s Performance of Title Insurance Companies report:http://www.thetitlereport.com/ME2/Audiences/Default.asp, 2008 proved to be the title insurance industry’s worst in 20 years.

According to recent analysis released by Subsidyscope , an initiative of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy group The Pew Charitable Trusts , federal subsidies to the government-controlled housing financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could reach $290 billion in fiscal year 2009.

More than 4,000 foreclosures were prevented in Minnesota last year as a result of the state’s nonprofit foreclosure counseling network, according to a study released by the Minnesota Home Ownership Center.

Just as the Great Depression contributed to large-scale migrations from certain parts of the United States, the current recession could be having a similar, historic effect, a new survey from Relocation.