News

Mortgage professionals involved with the servicing of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage loans said the biggest challenge they face with those loans is "fulfillment of FHA property preservation and conveyance requirements," according to the February 2015 Mortgage Industry Outlook Report released Monday by The Collingwood Group and The Five Star Institute. Thirty-nine percent of survey respondents who service FHA loans for their respective companies said that fulfilling fulfilling property preservation requirements was their toughest challenge.

Fannie Mae's gross mortgage portfolio continued its downward trend in December, falling at a compound annualized rate of 26.4 percent, according to Fannie Mae's December 2014 Monthly Summary released recently.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has provided guidance for state and local entities for implementation of the National Housing Trust Fund (HTF) in the form of an interim program rule published in the Federal Register, according to an announcement from HUD.

REO liquidations have amassed a higher share of gross unpaid balance (UPB) recovery than short sales since the fourth quarter of 2012, reversing a crisis-years trend, according to Black Knight Financial Services' December 2014 Mortgage Monitor released Monday. As of the end of October 2014, REO sales prices accounted for 71 percent of the corresponding loans' defaulted UPBs, compared to 65 percent for short sales prices, largely due to home price appreciation, according to Black Knight.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced on Friday proposed new minimum financial requirements for mortgage sellers and servicers to do business with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The proposed requirements include minimums for net worth, capital ratio, and liquidity criteria that must be met by servicers and sellers to do business with the GSEs.

According to a report from the group, more consumers reported improvements in their finances in January than any other time in the past decade, and four in 10 cited income gains as the primary reason. Notably, more of those gains are being reported among households with incomes under $75,000, a group that has seen relatively little of the recovery so far.

According to BEA, the slowdown mostly came from a rise in imports coupled with a decline in exports, a downturn in government spending, and decelerations in nonresidential fixed investment. Those weaknesses were offset by an upturn in private inventory investment and a pickup in consumer spending as falling gas prices left Americans with more discretionary income.

Freddie Mac's total mortgage portfolio ended 2014 on a strong note with its highest annualized growth rate for a single month in five years, according to the enterprise's December 2014 Monthly Volume Summary released Thursday.

The rental vacancy rate, meanwhile, fell 0.4 percentage points to 7.0 percent on a combination of tighter supply conditions and a rise in demand as homeownership looks like a distant dream for some Americans. In a survey last month, Freddie Mac found 61 percent of adults living in rental housing don't plan to purchase a home within the next three years as housing costs and credit challenges keep them on the sidelines.

Hearings began Thursday for thousands of homeowners behind on taxes and facing foreclosure in Wayne County, Michigan, at the Cobo Center in Downtown Detroit, according to an announcement from the Cobo Center.