Tag Archives: CoreLogic

The new platform, known as RCT Express 4.2, includes comprehensive building and contents valuation estimates and can be integrated into an existing valuation, allowing for the inclusion of contents estimates in insurance providers' risk assessments, according to CoreLogic.

Despite the year-over-year decline in the percentage of underwater residential properties, negative equity remains a serious issue, according to Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. For the full year of 2014, 1.2 million borrowers regained equity – but nearly five and a half million properties remained in negative equity as of the end of the year after approximately 172,000 homes slipped into negative equity from the third quarter to the fourth quarter in 2014.

Despite both states having high numbers of completed foreclosures for the previous 12 months, other foreclosure-related statistics between the two states do not correlate. Florida's foreclosure inventory rate of 3.5 percent for January (third among states behind New Jersey and New York) was more than double the national average for the month (1.4 percent), whereas Michigan's foreclosure inventor was less than half that number (0.6 percent).

According to Black Knight, however, one stat experienced an increase – foreclosure starts jumped by 5.5 percent year-over-year in January up to their highest level since December 2013. About 51 percent of January's reported total of 94,300 foreclosure starts were repeat foreclosures, according to Black Knight. January's spike in foreclosure starts is likely attributed more to seasonality than any type of pattern that may be forming, according to Black Knight's SVP of Loan Data Products, Trey Barnes.

The foreclosure rate in judicial states was more than triple the rate in non-judicial states in January (2.4 percent compared to 0.7 percent, according to CoreLogic). New Jersey, a judicial foreclosure state, led the pack in foreclosure rate with 5.2 percent of all residential homes with a mortgage in some state of foreclosure during January. Second was New York, another judicial foreclosure state, with 4.0 percent.

Completed foreclosures have totaled approximately 5.5 million nationwide since the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 and have totaled approximately 7 million since homeownership peaked in the second quarter of 2004. January's foreclosure rate of 1.4 percent, meaning 1.4 percent of all residential homes with a mortgage nationwide are in some state of foreclosure, was the lowest level reported since March 2008. Year-over-year, the foreclosure rate was down 0.6 percentage points, from 2.0 percent reported in January 2014.

While REO sales still had the largest share of all-cash home sales in December 2014, both the share of cash sales that are REO sales and the share of REO sales that are cash sales were down month-over-month, according to data released by CoreLogic on Monday.

Sales of distressed homes (REO and short sales) fell to their lowest level in seven years and foreclosure inventory dropped by 34 percent year-over-year in December 2014, according to CoreLogic's February 2015 The MarketPulse report released on Tuesday.

CoreLogic's announcement comes just two weeks after five of the nation's largest mortgage servicers – JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, GMAC Mortgage, and BAC Home Loans Servicing – were penalized a combined total of $123 million by the U.S. Department of Justice over non-judicial foreclosures that violated the SCRA.

With the nation's homeownership rates similar to those of 50 years ago, the foreclosure rate is significantly higher compared to the early 1960s. The main reason for the increase in foreclosure risk while the homeownership rate remains little changed is leverage, according to CoreLogic chief economist Sam Khater. The economist noted that leverage remains unaddressed by those responsible for initiating housing policy, and he recommended in his study that they may want to consider the ability to manage leverage in order to obtain financial stability in the residential housing market.