News

Many in the real estate industry believe there is a listing shortage, but a close look at the numbers suggests buyers in most markets are purchasing homes in increasingly larger volumes--even if some of those sales involve off-market homes not yet listed. Buyers and their real estate brokers are getting creative in buying off-market inventory in a number of ways.

DebtX has partnered with SEBA Professional Services to will sell a $5 billion portfolio of non-performing residential loans for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The loan sale consists of two parts: One part is a national offering of approximately 24,000, single family loans totaling $4 billion in unpaid principal balance (UPB), which will bid October 30 and December 10, 2013.

Even with concerns elevated over the government shutdown, sentiment among contacts of the Federal Reserve Districts remained ""cautiously optimistic"" about the nation's economic future, according to the Fed's Beige Book released this week. Reports on regional housing activity were generally positive, with most markets growing or at least not faltering. The Philadelphia District was the one exception.

Mortgage rates broke their streak of declines this week. Analysts say while the potential drag from the government shutdown and looming debt ceiling deadline had pulled rates lower in recent weeks, hopes that a promising deal was in the works served to ease those concerns and push rates higher. Freddie Mac reports the 30-year rate rose from 4.23 percent to 4.28 percent over the last week.

Real estate investors made an average gross profit of $54,927 on single-family home flips in the third quarter, RealtyTrac reported Thursday. The tracking company's data indicates investors' Q3 profit was up 12 percent from the average gross return a year earlier, driven in part by an increase in high-end flips of homes that were sold for $750,000 or more and concentrated in California and New York.

Fannie Mae priced its first risk-sharing transaction under the Connecticut Avenue Securities series (C-deals). The $675 million note offering is scheduled to settle on October 24 and is similar in structure to the STACR risk-sharing transaction from Freddie Mac this summer. Likewise, Fannie Mae's C-deal is intended to attract private capital to the housing market and reduce taxpayer risk.

CoreLogic Credco's Instant Merge credit reports are now available on D H Mortgagebot's EnterpriseLOS platform, CoreLogic announced. Instant Merge provides creditors with information such as demographic specifics and detailed creditor contact info.

Bank of America exhibited healthy growth during the third quarter despite an expected weakening in its mortgage banking operations, according to the company's Q3 earnings report released Wednesday. BofA's third-quarter net income was $2.5 billion, a significant increase compared to $340 million reported for Q3 2012. Its consumer real estate services division, though, reported a net loss of $1 billion.

Global DMS, a provider of Web-based compliant valuation management software, announced that it launched AMCmatch.com, a search engine that allows lenders, servicers and other users of valuation products to efficiently locate and qualify the best fit appraisal management company (AMC) for their needs.

Servicers completed 67,000 mortgage loan modifications in August, bringing the total for the year to 580,000, according to HOPE NOW. Loan modifications increased 8 percent in August when compared to the month prior, and year-to-date loan mods outpace foreclosure sales by about 142,000. HOPE NOW reports about 23,000 short sales were completed in August.