Daily Dose

According to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) recent study, rising prices of homes have helped homeowners build housing wealth, but the research found a worsening inequality in homeownership gains in metro areas.

In their Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), Freddie Mac found that mortgage rates inched to the highest levels seen in nearly a month for the week ending May 7, 2015. Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist at Freddie Mac, attributes the rise in part to a selloff in German bonds that drove U.S. Treasury yields above 2.2 percent.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their “Employment Situation—April 2015” report today, showing that the total number of non-farm payroll employment has increased by 223,000 in April, while the unemployment rate remained unchanged from the previous month at 5.4 percent.

Essent Group Ltd. more than doubled their net income for Q1. According to data released by the company, the net income for Q1 2015 was $38.4 million or $0.38 per diluted share, compared to $15 million or $0.18 per diluted share for Q1 2014.

Speaking at the Greenlining Institute 22nd Annual Economic Summit, Watt announced a one-year extension of the government's two affordable housing programs, which began in 2009 in response to the housing crisis. HARP was set to expire at the end of this year, while HAMP was extended last July until the end of 2016.

There are many metrics by which to judge the current administration against those of the past. This week, ValueWalk ranked the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ presidents as judged by their homeownership rates. Making ValueWalk’s ‘best’ list were Presidents Clinton, Johnson (Lydon), and Carter who saw homeownership expand during their presidencies by 5.1 percent, just over 1.1 percent, and just under 1.1. percent, respectively. ValueWalk ranks President Obama as one of the worst presidents when it comes to homeownership numbers, followed by President Regan

In their “Eye on Housing” blog, the National Association of Builders (NAHB) broke down the findings of the April 2015 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS), conducted by the Federal Reserve Board. In the survey, banks were asked questions that attempted to judge how they were responding to GSE guidelines issued on November 20, 2014 on life-of-loan representation and warranty exclusions.

After experiencing a $191 million loss from continuing operations for the 2014 year, PHH Corporation was able to make a complete turnaround for the first quarter. The company managed to wrap up Q1, ending March 31, 2015, with a net income of $21 million.

Fannie Mae reported a net income of $1.9 billion for the first quarter of 2015, up from $1.3 billion from the previous quarter, according to Fannie Mae's Q1 2015 financial results released Thursday. The primary driver of the nearly 50 percent quarter-over-quarter increase in net income was lower fair value losses for Q1, according to Fannie Mae's announcement.

Retesting of Ocwen Financial's compliance with the terms of the 2012 National Mortgage Settlement (NMS) for the first quarter of 2014 revealed that the Atlanta-based servicer failed one metric originally reported as a pass, but passed the other eight metrics, according to a release from the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight.