Daily Dose

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday by a 5-4 vote in the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. that disparate impact claims can legally be brought about under the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The wealth gap among Americans widened dramatically after the housing market collapse. This placed many black homeowners at a huge economic disadvantage, leaving them with limited access to servicing, lenders, and credit. New research by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that all households lost wealth from 2007 to 2009 at the height of the housing bust and recession. However, in 2009, median white household wealth ceased to decrease, while median black household wealth dropped steadily.

More than half of the states plus the District of Columbia, along with more than a third of the nation's largest metro areas, were categorized as in the "stable" range in April on the strength of a healthy spring homebuying season, according to Freddie Mac's April 2015 Multi-Indicator Market Index (MiMi) released Wednesday.

Millennials have become more positive when it comes purchasing their first home and are primed to gain market share in the second half of the year, based on the results of Realtor.com’s Consumer Behavior Survey. Relator.com found that 65 percent of the survey respondents indicated that they intend to buy a home within three months, up from 54 percent in January.

The housing market has been seeing some noticeable changes this year as home values move upward. According to the May Zillow Real Estate Market Reports, bidding wars are pushing home values up in the nation’s most popular housing markets, although home values are not anywhere near their peak points during the real estate bubble in smaller markets.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has announced a proposed amendment to the Know Before You Owe mortgage rule, commonly known as the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule, which would move the effective date of the rule to Saturday, October 3, 2015. According to CFPB, the Bureau is issuing the proposed amendment to correct an "administrative error" that would have pushed the TRID effective date back at least two weeks from its original effective date of August 1, 2015.

Earlier this month, Freddie Mac announced that it would offer its Loan Prospector underwriter system free of charge as of June 1, 2015. Today, Fannie Mae matched Freddie Mac’s offer and announced that it will eliminate fees on its Desktop Underwriter automated underwriting system and Desktop Originator tool.

The housing market is showing no signs of slowing down as new single-family home sales in May 2015 rose 2.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000, the highest rate since February 2008, according to new residential sales data released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and HUD.

In order to provide transparency, reduce risks to consumers, and comply with Federal consumer financial law, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently shared its eighth Supervisory Highlights report. The report covers the illegal practices that the Bureau uncovers in areas such as consumer reporting, debt collection, student loan servicing, mortgage origination, mortgage servicing, and fair lending for the first four months of the year.

After a decline in economic activity in the first quarter, research has shown that a complete turnaround is expected for the second quarter. Fannie Mae’s Economic & Strategic Research (ESR) Group found indicators of the U.S. experiencing a moderate rebound in economic growth for the current quarter.