Category: News and Trends

First, the good news: Zillow Inc., Seattle, reported fewer homeowners underwater, with the national negative equity rate falling to 13.1 percent in the fourth quarter.

CoreLogic, Irvine, Calif., said one million borrowers regained equity in 2015, bringing the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity at the end of the fourth quarter to 46.3 million, or 91.5 percent of all mortgaged properties.

LRES, Orange, Calif., issued a free white paper, What Mortgage Servicers Need to Know to Prevent Liens from Destroying Investor Profits.

As the House and Senate Budget Committees take up fiscal 2017 spending bills, the Mortgages Bankers Association and more than a dozen industry trade groups reiterated their opposition to use of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac guarantee fees to offset unrelated appropriations.

MBA NewsLink recently posed questions to Pramod Karachur, project manager with IndiSoft LLC, Columbia, Md.

Equifax, Atlanta, reported the total balance of outstanding first mortgages rose to more than $8.3 trillion in January, a 2.1 percent increase from a year ago.

The Mortgage Bankers Association and a half-dozen industry trade groups sent a letter to leadership of the House Financial Services and House Armed Services Committees, urging them to support legislation that restores and extends a one-year extension of foreclosure protections for members of the armed services.

HOPE NOW reported its member companies offered nearly 1.5 million foreclosure alternatives in 2015, including 420,000 completed permanent loan modifications.

Thanks to the extended refinance boom, everyone who could have refinanced their mortgages have already done so, right? Think again, says Black Knight Financial Services, Jacksonville, Fla.

Clear Capital, Reno, Nev., said home price appreciation continued fall quarter over quarter, but pointed to lower distressed saturation levels as a harbinger of a stronger spring home market.