News

Nearly 99,000 homeowners refinanced their mortgages in August through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said Tuesday. Since the beginning of this year, when a broader group of borrowers were made eligible for the program, the federal government's HARP initiative has put 618,217 homeowners with loans owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac into new mortgages with lower interest rates. According to FHFA, HARP is on target to reach a million borrowers in 2012.

Lender Processing Services’ (LPS) subsidiary, DocX, reached a settlement with Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, leading to the end of an investigation concerning DocX’s document execution practices, LPS announced in a statement Tuesday.

There are a range of simulation games. Games that replicate what its like to be in a war zone and games that let you build your own city. To help banks tackle the issue of mortgage delinquencies, BankersLab announced the launch of CollectionLab, a simulation game that allows banks to test strategies in a virtual environment as they attempt to optimize delinquent collections.

A Virginia man received a sentence of 14 years in federal prison for carrying out elaborate and sophisticated fraud schemes that took millions away from investors and the government, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) announced.

Five homeowners based in Alabama filed a class action suit against a group of 12 financial institutions, including Bank of America Corporation, Barclays Bank, and Citigroup, claiming the interest rates for their adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) were raised as result of the rigged London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR).

The default rate for first mortgages now stands at a post-recession low, and the default rate for second mortgages is at the lowest level in its more than 8-year history, according to data from the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices. The first mortgage default rate fell to 1.36 percent in September, down from 1.40 percent in August and 1.99 percent in September 2011. The second mortgage default rate bottomed to 0.64 percent, down from 0.72 percent in August 2012 and 1.32 percent a year ago.

The California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) continued to report a shortage of inventory in September, which is limiting home sales but seems to be pushing up home prices. According to C.A.R., the median home price in California is now at the highest level in more than four years.

Fitch Ratings is predicting a continued recovery into 2012, according to a recent report titled U.S. Homebuilding and Construction: The Chalk Line. A slowly growing economy combined with ""somewhat diminished distressed home sales competition, less competitive rental cost alternatives, and new home inventories at historically low levels"" led the ratings agency to predict growth for housing starts and home sales into 2012, with further moderate improvements into 2013.

Kroll Factual Data, Inc. found risks in mortgage applications appears to be increasing. The company recently revealed that the loans it processes had a 1.3 percent increase in the possibility of fraudulent activity in the second quarter compared to the previous quarter.

After jumping 11 points in three months, builder confidence inched up one point in October to 41, remaining at its highest level since June 2006, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported Tuesday, matching economist expectations. The October boost was due entirely to a surge in homebuyer traffic in October, as other elements of the index were flat from September.