Independent monitor Joseph A. Smith, Jr. has credited JPMorgan Chase with $3.3 billion in consumer relief under the terms of the 2013 JPMorgan Chase Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Settlement, according to a release from Smith's office on Thursday. In his fifth report on Chase's progress toward satisfying the $4 billion consumer relief requirement of the settlement, Smith confirmed that Chase has provided more than 151,000 borrowers with a combined total of approximately $3.3 billion as of December 31, 2014.
The report released Thursday includes Chase's self-reported gross consumer relief and the amount of consumer relief credit the bank claimed for the first quarter of 2015, an amount that has not yet been validated by Smith. According to Chase's internal review group, the bank provided about 6,600 borrowers with an additional $2.31 million in creditable consumer relief during the first quarter of 2015. Smith said he and his team are in the process of confirming Chase's Q1 2015 consumer credit relief and he will issue a report this fall.
Sales of distressed properties in April 2015 hit their lowest point since April 2007, according to a report released Thursday by CoreLogic. Distressed sales comprised 11 percent of home sales nationally in April, down 3 percent from last April and 1 point 5 percent from March. It is also far below the January 2009 peak in which distressed sales accounted for a third of U.S. home sales. CoreLogic expects the numbers to return to their pre-crisis average of about 2 percent by mid-2017, a claim bolstered by the ongoing shift away from REO sales.