The government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) continues to add borrowers to its roster each month, but the pace has slowed. Data released Friday by Treasury and HUD shows the number of permanent HAMP mods granted during the month of March was down 10 percent from the month before and down 45 percent from March 2011. While HAMP activity has slowed, other government-assisted foreclosure alternatives in the form of short sales and deeds-in-lieu have held fairly steady.

While Treasury has stated it recovered $264 billion of the $245 billion invested in TARP, Treasury Assistant Secretary Timothy G. Massad said 343 banks still remain in TARP's taxpayer-funded bank programs. Most of these banks are smaller, community lenders and are having a more difficult time with raising funds from private investors in the capital markets to repay taxpayers, Massad explained in a Treasury blog Thursday.

An Austin, Texas, man was sentenced Thursday to 61 months in prison for his role in a foreclosure-rescue scam that took place in Southern California and elsewhere, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) announced Friday. Frederic Alan Gladle, 53, was charged in the Western District of Texas and ordered to forfeit $84,010 and 63 prepaid debit cards he used for his scheme, in addition to this sentence. Gladle pleaded guilty on January 6, 2012, to one count of bankruptcy fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

The economy added 115,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent. With an upward revision of 53,000, March's payroll growth is now 159,000. Economists expected payrolls to grow by 165,000 for April. The government sector cut 15,000 jobs, and the private sector added 130,000 jobs. With these reported numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, economists from IHS Global Insight, Capital Economics, and Fannie Mae provided their own analysis on what the numbers really mean and what they may indicate for the future.

With compliance issues becoming a growing concern in the mortgage industry, Dominic Iannitti, president and CEO of DocMagic, advised loan originators to integrate automated loan file audits in their workflow from the time an applicant makes a submission to the time documents are prepared to be sent to the secondary market.

The nation added 115,000 jobs in April, far below expectations and a drop from March’s revised payroll growth of 154,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The closely watched unemployment rate dipped again to 8.1 percent – its lowest level since January 2009 (7.8 percent) when President Obama took office – a function of a sharp drop in the nation’s labor force. Payroll gains for February and March were revised, adding 19,000 to the February numbers and 34,000 to March. The average workweek remained at 34.5 hours – still below the level when the recession began in December 2007 (34.6) and average hourly earnings improved by one cent. The number of people not in the labor force increased, as both the number of people employed and unemployed declined.

Freddie Mac reported net income of $577 million for the first quarter of 2012. That combined with $1.21 billion in unrealized gains on securities investments resulted in comprehensive income of $1.79 billion. The GSE's finances didn't sit in the black for very long, however. After a $1.8 billion dividend payment to its primary shareholder, the U.S. Treasury, Freddie's net worth was a deficit of $18 million. Looking at the GSE's loss mitigation numbers, short sales almost equaled the number of loan modifications during the first quarter.

While reports on home prices have been mostly uninspiring, with some flickering of hope here and there, rent prices continue to make significant strides, with rent increasing more than 10 percent compared to a year ago in certain markets, according to findings Trulia released Thursday. Rent prices rose 5.6 percent in April compared to a year ago during the same month, Trulia reported. Good news was also in store for asking prices, which compared to the previous month of March, increased 0.5 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis.

International City Mortgage (ICM) recently released ICM Fannie Mae Direct, a new conventional service retained home loan product.

During a CoreLogic economic webinar Thursday, the company's chief economist, Mark Fleming, Ph.D., was asked if the housing market has hit bottom and will it stick, as reports seem to be speculating. Apparently, the market was thought to have hit bottom twice before already. Fleming noted that this happened in 2010 when the home buyer tax credit was available and a second time in 2011 before the European debt crises, the Japanese earthquakes, and our own debt ceiling debate crushed consumer confidence.