News

Home prices rose another 0.6 percent in January, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA's) House Price Index, which measures the prices of homes owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. January's gain continues a persistent monthly trend of rising prices started in January 2012. The past 12 months of rising prices have resulted in a total gain of 6.5 percent. While prices continue their upward trend nationally, one-third of the nine U.S. Census Divisions recorded price declines in January--the East South Central Division, the New England Division, and the Middle Atlantic Division.

Freddie Mac increased its efforts to support greater transparency through the release of loan-level data for its single-family mortgages. The dataset includes about 15.7 million fully amortizing 30-year fixed-rate single-family mortgages originated between 1999 to 2011, which represents about 53 percent of the GSE's mortgage acquisitions for that period.

While a few stumbling blocks remain, Freddie Mac insists the economy is finally headed from gloom to bloom this spring. The GSE's U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for March shows low mortgage rates, rising prices, and gradually improving consumer confidence will bolster home sales as the homebuying season starts. Compared to 2012, experts at Freddie Mac expect home sales to increase 8 to 10 percent this year, coming to about 5.4 million units sold by year's end.

After spiking last week, mortgage rates took a dive this week as tension broke out in Europe over the financial crisis in the island country of Cyprus. According to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.54 percent (0.8 point) for the week ending March 21, down from 3.63 percent last week. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.08 percent; it has remained below the 4.00 percent mark for a full year now.

A new report from a government watchdog accused Freddie Mac, its servicers, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) of not meeting requirements when handling and resolving escalated consumer complaints. According to a report from the FHFA Office of Inspector General (OIG), Freddie Mac and eight of its largest servicers, which service 70 percent of the GSE’s mortgages, received over 34,000 complaints that became escalated cases during a 14-month time period ending November 30, 2012. After tracking the escalated cases, FHFA OIG found seven out of the eight Freddie Mac servicers did not resolve all escalated cases within the 30-day requirement.

Ally Bank has reached an agreement with Quicken Loans to sell the last of its remaining mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) portfolio, both companies announced. The purchase price is estimated to be approximately $280 million. ""This agreement marks a key milestone for Ally and, upon successful completion of the MSR transactions, Ally Bank will have exited all the non-strategic mortgage activities,"" said Barbara Yastine, present and CEO of Ally Bank.

Home values maintained their upward trajectory in February after climbing for the 16th straight month, according to Zillow's Home Value Index. The index registered a national value of $158,100 last month, which represents a slight 0.1 percent increase from January and a 5.8 percent jump from February 2012, Zillow reported. The yearly gain is the second largest increase since August 2006. In January, the year-over-year gain was 6 percent. At the same time, all 30 of the largest metros tracked by the online real estate marketplace saw monthly and yearly price growth.

Amendments to the Senior Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement (PSPA) between Treasury and the GSEs, agreed to in August 2012 may lead to faster and greater returns to taxpayers but could also potentially leave the enterprises with largely illiquid portfolios, according to a report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Office of Inspector General (FHFA OIG). The amendments addressed several terms of the PSPAs. One of the most notable changes was the change in dividend structure.

Existing-home sales rose 0.8 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.98 million, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday. Economists had expected the sales pace to climb to 5.01 million from January's originally reported 4.92 million. January sales were revised up to 4.94 million. The inventory of homes for sale rose for the first time since last July, up 9.6 percent to 1,940,000. At the reported sales pace, that represents a 4.7-month supply of homes for sale, up from the 4.3-month supply reported for January.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance increased 2,000 to 336,000 for the week ending March 16--the first increase in a month--the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected claims to rise to 340,000. Initial jobless claims for the week ending March 9 were revised up to 334,000 from the initially reported 332,000. The slight increase in first-time claims was driven largely by seasonal adjustment factors and as such masks the sharp improvement in the jobs market.