News

Together, commercial banks and savings institutions insured by the FDIC earned record profits in the first quarter, while the number of ""problem"" banks continued to decline. According to the FDIC, net income for FDIC-insured institutions reached an an all-time high of $40.3 billion in Q1, up by 15.8 percent from last year. FDIC's list of ""problem"" banks was reduced for the eighth straight quarter, decreasing to 612. Two years ago, 888 banks were on the list.

Foreclosure inventory continued to shrink in April, with the number of homes in some stage of the foreclosure process down 24 percent year-over-year, according to data from CoreLogic. About 1.1 million homes sat in foreclosure inventory in April compared to 1.5 million properties a year ago, CoreLogic reported. The data provider also reported the number of homes lost to foreclosure decreased 16 percent year-over-year in April to 52,000.

As June--National Homeownership Month--approaches, NeighborWorks America is putting a spotlight on the thousands of new (and well-prepared) homeowners created in 2012.

The Illinois Association of Realtors (IAR) reported sales were up 25.3 percent year-over-year throughout the state. According to the association, statewide home sales (including single-family homes and condos) totaled 12,621 in April, the best performance for that month since 2007.

Although the multifamily sector leads the commercial real estate market in terms of performance, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) expects the apartment rental market to see its vacancy rate tick up over the next year. The NAR projects the multifamily vacancy rate will rise from 3.9 percent in the second quarter to 4.1 percent during the same quarter in 2014. Though, according to the NAR, a vacancy rate of less than 5 percent makes the sector a landlord's market, where demand justifies increases.

In its latest reading on home values, Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS) reported strong price gains in March and increases in every state and metro the data provider tracks. In dollar terms, the LPS Home Price Index (HPI) averaged $213,000 in March. The figure represents a 1.4 percent increase from February and a 7.6 percent improvement from March 2012. From January of this year to March, prices have climbed 2.9 percent.

Three former executives of the Bank of the Commonwealth and a borrower were convicted by a federal jury in Norfolk, Virginia for their roles in a fraud scheme that eventually led to the bank's failure in 2011, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) said last week in a release.

While 22 percent of Americans admitted they have never checked their credit report, nearly a quarter said they have encountered issues with their credit report, with incorrect or outdated negative marks leading as the main type of problem, according to a recent FindLaw. Overall, 23 percent of Americans said they have had a problem with their credit report, and 10 percent of problems were related to incorrect or outdated information about their credit history, such as delinquency payments, payment history, collection actions, court judgments, and bankruptcies.

Among the available foreclosure prevention tools, short sales are becoming the weapon of choice for servicers while the use of loan modifications has slowed, data from Fitch Ratings revealed. For example, among bank servicers, the percentage of resolutions in the loan modification category decreased to 26 percent in the last half of 2012 from 57 percent in the first half of 2010, according to Fitch's latest quarterly index. Meanwhile, short sales showed significant increases over the last couple of years. In 2012, short sales represented 51 percent of resolutions for bank servicers, up from a low of 20 percent in 2010.

Home prices posted their strongest yearly gain in almost seven years in March, with both the 10- and 20-city indices seeing double-digit gains, according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Tuesday. The national index, reported quarterly, was up 10.2 percent. From February to March, prices increased in 15 of the 20 cities surveyed, falling in two and staying flat in the remaining three. Month-over-month, the 10- and 20-city indices improved 1.4 percent in March, the fastest gain for each index since last July. The national index advanced 1.2 percent for the quarter.