CoreLogic: Distressed Home Sales at Lowest Level in 8 Years

HousingWire, Nov. 4, 2015–Swanson, Brena
Distressed sales and short sales accounted for 9.3% of total home sales nationally in August, down 2.3 percentage points from a year ago and down 0.4 percentage points from July, said CoreLogic.

Freddie Mac Won’t Need Treasury Aid After Third-Quarter Loss

Bloomberg, Nov. 3, 2015–Hopkins, Cheyenne
Freddie Mac won’t seek additional funds from the Treasury Department and won’t need to make a dividend payment to the government after reporting a half-billion dollar third-quarter loss stemming mostly from accounting for hedges against interest-rate risk.

Fannie, Freddie May Need to Tap Treasury, FHFA Director Says

Marketwatch, Nov. 3, 2015–Goldstein, Steve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are at risk of needing an injection of Treasury capital after the latter reported its first quarterly loss in four years, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency said Tuesday.

Are Servicers Finally Off the CFPB’s Hit List?

HousingWire, Nov. 3, 2015–Swanson, Brena
A quick perusal of the new supervisory report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might finally be a sign that servicers are no longer at the top of the bureau’s hit list.

Mortgage Company Sues Owners of 400 Georgetown Homes over Titles

Austin American-Statesman, Nov. 3, 2015–Osborn, Claire
Owners of 400 homes in a Williamson County, Texas neighborhood got a shock recently after receiving a federal lawsuit that said the land they had bought as far back as the 1990s really wasn’t theirs.

MGIC: Primary New Mortgage Insurance Falls to $3.5B

HousingWire, Nov. 9, 2015–Swanson, Brena
Primary new mortgage insurance once again dropped for the month and declined to $3.5 billion, according to MGIC Investment’s October operational summery of its insurance subsidiaries for its primary mortgage insurance.

Midwest States Reign in Mortgage Health Survey

National Mortgage Professional, Nov. 9, 2015–Hall, Phil
North Dakota has received much attention lately for its booming energy industry. But a new survey from the NerdWallet Web site gives North Dakota new attention as the state with the best mortgage health.

PMI Competition About More Than New Pricing: Essent CEO

National Mortgage News, Nov. 9, 2015–Finkelstein, Brad
Amid an ongoing shift in pricing strategies in the private mortgage insurance market, Essent Group chairman and CEO Mark Casale is trying to show investors that aggressive pricing tactics aren’t the only way PMI firms compete.

Big Banks Could Be Forced to Raise Up to $1.19 Trillion in New Securities

Wall Street Journal, Nov. 9, 2015–Dendrinou, Victoria
Global financial regulators published new rules that aim to stop banks from becoming “too big to fail,” to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, when taxpayers had to bail out banks whose collapse would have threatened large-scale financial panic.