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The delinquency rate on U.S. commercial real estate loans saw its biggest drop in more than a year in October, according to Trepp, LLC. The analytics provider released its October 2012 U.S. CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed securities) Delinquency Report, revealing that the delinquency rate for commercial real estate loans in CMBS fell 30 basis points to 9.69 percent. The drop was the biggest one recorded in 14 months and marks the third straight month in which overall delinquency has improved.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were shy of meeting their low-income and very low-income home purchase goals, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) annual housing report. Currently, the GSEs, the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs – all government agencies – serve as the principal sources of liquidity in the mortgage market.

A turnaround in housing helped drive Freddie Mac to a $2.9 billion profit in the third quarter, the GSE reported. Freddie Mac's net earnings dipped slightly under the $3.0 billion reported for Q2, but it helped keep the company from making any additional Treasury draws. In addition, Freddie's comprehensive income of $5.6 billion in Q3 allowed it to pay a $1.8 billion dividend on senior preferred stock.

In the third quarter of this year, servicers increased the pace at which they completed proprietary modifications and short sales, HOPE NOW data revealed Monday. In Q3 2012, proprietary modifications, or non-government mods, stood at 186,057 compared to 161,764 in Q3 2011, representing a 15 percent annual gain, according to the alliance. Quarter-over-quarter, proprietary mods were up 41 percent compared to Q2 2012, when there were 131,556 completed mods.

Home prices in September posted their biggest yearly gain in more than 6 years, but prices displayed a typical seasonal slowdown and fell month-over-month, according to the Home Price Index (HPI) report from CoreLogic. When including distressed sales, the report showed home prices moved higher by 5 percent from September 2011, the seventh straight month of yearly increases and the biggest annual gain since July 2006.

Real estate technology provider a la mode, inc. announced that its Mercury Network service will waive all fees related to gathering disaster reports in areas impacted by Hurricane Sandy. According to a company release, in the aftermath of Sandy, orders for disaster inspection reports from lenders increased more than 200 times the normal level.

The FDIC added two more banks to this year's failed bank list Friday, bringing the total year-to-date to 49. The two shuttered banks were located in Illinois and Florida, each marking the eighth bank in their state to close this year.

Goldman Sachs is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss a mortgage securities class action lawsuit that the company says could cost Wall Street tens of billions of dollars, according to a report from Reuters. The bank is facing a suit from the NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund, which owned mortgage-backed certificates underwritten by Goldman. The fund is suing on behalf of investors who say they were misled about the securities' risk, Reuters reports. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York decided in September to allow the lawsuit to go ahead on the basis that the NECA-IBEW is acting for investors whose claims ""implicate the same set of concerns"" as its own.

The country's largest life insurance provider announced it is selling its mortgage servicing portfolio to one of the country's biggest mortgage servicers. MetLife, Inc., announced an agreement to sell MetLife Bank, N.A.'s mortgage servicing portfolio to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but MetLife revealed in a statement the portfolio is worth approximately $70 billion. As a result of the purchase, Chase's $1.1 trillion servicing business is expected to grow by more than 5 percent.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced a third bidder scooped up properties in three states for the agency's REO-to-rental initiative, leaving Atlanta as the sole metro in the program with no winning bidder. Colony Capital, LLC purchased 970 properties in Los Angeles and Riverside, California; Phoenix, Arizona; and Las Vegas, Nevada, the agency revealed Thursday. In a statement Monday, C.A.R. said, ""Fannie Mae and FHFA’s decision to move forward with the REO bulk sale in California amounts to another gift to Wall Street at the expense of taxpayers.""