News

The Basel III reforms were created to address ""shortcomings in capital requirements, particularly for larger, internationally active banking organizations, that became apparent during the recent financial crisis."" The Fed also announced a number of changes in the rule designed to address concerns about the regulatory burden on smaller community banks.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance fell for the fourth time in the last five weeks, dropping 5,000 to 343,000 for week ending June 29, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. Economists expected 345,000 claims. Claims filings for the week ending June 22 were revised up to 348,000 from the originally reported 346,000.

At a national level, Clear Capital revised its 2.6 percent projected price gain over the year this year up to 6 percent. While lower than the current yearly gain of 8.6 percent, this forecast is still greater than historical norms, which rank between 4 and 5 percent. Meanwhile, 45 of the top 50 metropolitan markets will experience yearly price increases during the second half of the year, according to Clear Capital's forecast.

Fitch Ratings has observed inconsistencies in the way servicers report losses in cases of principal forbearance. According to the agency, before 2010, pooling and servicing agreements did not require servicers to report forborne principal as losses. Nationstar Mortgage announced it is revising losses on loans with principal forbearances acquired in 2012 from Aurora Bank FSB and Aurora Loan Services.

A North Dakota judge sentenced two officers from an Arizona mortgage originator for their roles in a $28 million scheme to defraud North Dakota-based BNC National Bank.

National home prices in May posted their biggest annual gain since February 2006, CoreLogic reported Tuesday. When including distressed sales, home prices shot up by 12.2 percent year-over-year in May, marking the 15th straight month of increases. From April to May, home prices climbed 2.6 percent. CoreLogic's pending home price index points to further improvements in June, with prices projected to exceed May's increase with a 13.2 percent gain.

So far, efforts from the GSEs have led to nearly 2.8 million foreclosure prevention actions since the start of the September 2008 conservatorship, the FHFA reported Monday. The agency also found the serious delinquency rate for GSE borrowers decreased to 3 percent compared to 8 percent for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans. However, more than half of the GSEs' seriously delinquent borrowers were past due by at least a year in the first quarter.

In recent months, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took important steps toward transparency with the release of historical credit performance data. The move also paved the way for credit risk sharing transactions as the FHFA looks to reduce the GSEs' role in housing finance. In an effort to help investors ""evaluate upcoming credit-sensitive securitization proposals from the GSEs,"" Fitch Ratings completed an analysis of the historical data in a recent report. Overall, the report determined loans originated from 2009 and beyond should outperform earlier vintages.

Citigroup and Fannie Mae announced Monday an agreement to resolve future repurchase claims for breaches of representations of warranties on millions of loans originated between 2000 and 2012. According to release from Citi, the agreement covers 3.7 million residential first mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae. As part of the agreement, Citi will pay Fannie Mae $968 million, ""substantially all of which was covered"" by the bank's existing mortgage repurchase reserves as of the end of the first quarter.

CoreLogic announced an agreement Monday to buy Marshall & Swift/Boeckh and DataQuick Information Systems from the Decision Insight Information Group for $661 million. The transaction, which is expected to close during the third quarter of this year, will expand the Irvine, California-based company's data and analytics segment.