News

At their peak in January 2011, cash sales accounted for nearly half of all residential home sales in the United States (46.5 percent). Since then, that percentage has steadily declined; in August 2015, it was reported at 31.7 percent, less than one-third of all home sales—a decline of more than 3 percentage points from August 2014, when it was 34.9 percent.

“Despite mixed housing and mortgage market data, our forecast for housing activity is little changed over the past several months,” Duncan said. “The supply of existing homes remains lean amid slowing new single-family construction, putting significant upward pressure on home prices. While this helps boost home equity, it hurts affordability, especially for potential first-time homebuyers."

The amendment to H.R. 2577, known as the Jumpstart GSE Reform Act, was introduced by Corker, Warner, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), and Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) in September and offered on Thursday by Corker and Warner as an amendment to H.R. 2577. The Jumpstart GSE Reform Act prohibits the sale of Treasury-owned preferred shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without approval from Congress, and also prohibits increases in guarantee fees charged by the GSEs from offsetting non-housing related government spending.

A statement from the FOMC showed that household spending and business fixed investment rose at solid rates in recent months, while the housing market continued to improve.

Now the White House is threatening to veto that bill as well as another piece of legislation that would allow loans in portfolio to qualify for an exemption under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)'s qualified mortgage (QM) rule. Both bills passed in the House on Wednesday.

The state of Ohio is taking steps to remedy the vacant and abandoned property crisis, however, and the rest of the country may follow suit. A bill that would reduce foreclosure timelines and therefore shorten the amount of time that residential properties remain vacant in Ohio passed by a unanimous 88-0 vote in the Ohio House of Representatives earlier this week.

CoreLogic Inc., announced that the company has released its enhanced home equity data set to expand the information delivered through its two home equity data solutions: CoreLogic Loan Level Home Equity and TrueStandings Home Equity.

October’s increases for the mortgage default rates followed a September which showed declines of eight basis points (down to 0.76 percent) for the first mortgage default rate and 10 basis points (down to 0.47 percent) for the second mortgage default rate.

Fannie Mae’s credit risk transfer program, Connecticut Avenue Securities (CAS), has sold more than $12.4 billion in securities to private investors, which covers $438 billion worth of mortgage loans since the program’s inception in September 2013. Fannie Mae estimates by the end of 2015, it will have transferred a portion of the credit risk on approximately half a trillion dollars worth of single-family mortgages.

Alliant National Title Insurance Company, a title insurance underwriter that partners with independent agents to improve their competitive position in the marketplace, announced that the company has hired Elyce Schweitzer as their new Regulatory Compliance Officer and VP.