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Homeowners who refinance continue to overwhelmingly opt for fixed-rate mortgages, and by historical standards, fewer homeowners are using refinances as a means of putting more cash in their pockets, according to Freddie Mac's 2013 Second Quarter Refinance Report. More than 95 percent of homeowners who refinanced their mortgage loans in the second quarter of this year chose fixed-rate loans. At the same time, ""[t]he cash-out amount, while increasing, continues to remain low by historical standards,"" according to Frank Nothaft, VP and chief economist at Freddie Mac.

During a Bipartisan Policy Center forum Tuesday, experts generally agreed the housing market is on the path to recovery, but the strength of the national recovery remained in question. According to Douglas G. Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae, we may be in a recovery, but it has been the ""weakest recovery since World War II"" when considering income growth. Richard Smith, CEO and president of Realogy, took a more optimistic approach and stated we are in the early stages of a ""fairly strong recovery,"" with prices reacting to inadequate supply.

As the housing industry mends, younger Americans are expressing greater confidence in the market, according to results from Prudential Real Estate's Q2 outlook survey. Of the 2,600 millennials surveyed in Q2, 71 percent said their perception of the housing market is favorable, up from 65 percent in Q1. In 2011, only 52 percent of Americans aged 25 to 34 held a favorable perception of the real estate market.

A drop in housing-related retailers slowed retail sales last month. Total retail sales increased 0.2 percent in July, down from June's 0.6 percent increase, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Economists had expected sales to increase 0.3 percent. The weaker-than-expected retail sales report decreases the likelihood the Federal Reserve will begin to taper its bond buying monetary stimulus program.

Turns out, when the Justice Department announced triumphs of the Distressed Homeowner Initiative in October 2012, the numbers were largely overstated. In an updated press release Friday, the Justice Department announced the initiative actually resulted in 107 criminal defendants charged in U.S. District Courts in Fiscal Year 2012 (October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012), not the 530 first reported. The corrected release also stated the cases involved more than 17,185 homeowner victims, while the original numbers reported the cases included more than 73,000 homeowner victims.

Economists and experts in a Zillow survey predicted median home values will rise to $167,490 by the end of this year, a gain of 6.7 percent over 2012. The forecast is a significant jump from the 5.4 percent annual increase expected in the last quarterly survey. Based on current expectations for home value appreciation over the next five years, panelists on average predicted home values could approach new record highs by the end of 2017. That said, many predicted appreciation rates will slow from 2014 through 2017.

The Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions closed on Friday the Bank of Wasau, appointing FDIC as receiver. As of June 30, the bank had approximately $40.7 million in deposits and $43.6 million in total assets.

After reviewing research on perceptions of homeownership, Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies found the housing crisis does not appear to have had any major long-term effects on Americans' perceptions of homeownership. ""Our review of early research on the impacts of the housing crisis on attitudes toward homeownership suggest that no extraordinary efforts will be needed to attract American households back into the housing market,"" the Center said in its paper, Reexamining the Social Benefits of Homeownership After the Crisis.

Hot on the heels of a huge fiscal year (FY) 2012 and the issuing of its 20 millionth home loan, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is working through a mandate to expand its VA Appraiser Fee Panel by 25 percent. ""Right now we have just over 4,100 appraisers on our fee panel,"" said Gerald Kifer, supervisory appraiser of the VA in a WorkingRE.com article. ""We are looking to appoint an estimated 1,400 additional appraisers to VA panels nationwide."" The expansion comes at an appropriate time. VA loan volume has grown a staggering 305 percent from FY 2007 to FY 2012.

Out of 163 metro areas across the country, 31 percent experienced double-digit annual home price gains in the second quarter, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). During the second quarter last year, only 14 percent of markets showed double-digit yearly increases. Overall, 87 percent of the metro areas tracked saw median prices for existing-homes rise compared to last year, while 12 percent experienced declines, NAR data showed.