Featured

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.

With the housing market still in recovery from the recession, homeownership is not a commodity that everyone can afford. In fact, it is a luxury. Forbes writer, Erin Carlyle pointed out a housing forecast titled "What to Expect in the Second Half of 2015" that the homeownership rate in 2005 was 69.1 percent, while today, it’s 63.7 percent, the lowest level the nation has seen since 1993. The forecast highlights that sellers are in an ideal market as the demand for housing is back, but for buyers, home prices are not very favorable and continue to rise.

Housing market watchers have been waiting to see what will happen in parts of the U.S. with heavy oil-related employment, according to CoreLogic’s report on their Insights Blog titled “Housing Market Strength in Oil Metros, Equity Position of Texas Oil Metros is Strong.” Between the fall of 2014 and this spring, oil prices fell 42 percent causing those who consistently monitor the housing market to wonder about the effect that this will have on the real estate industry.

A group of dozens of investors, led by BlackRock, Inc., have revived a lawsuit in a New York state court that was dismissed in a federal court last month, accusing U.S. Bank of failing in its duties as trustee for more than $743 billion worth of mortgage backed securities.

With word the highly anticipated disparate impact ruling expected to come forth by the end of June, industry leaders cannot help but grow increasingly curious regarding this Supreme Court case. The Supreme Court heard the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, et al. (Texas) v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. (IC) on January 21 and have yet to make a decision on this case.

Just two weeks after being upgraded by Moody's Investor Service and being placed Standard & Poor's CreditWatch list for a downgrade, S&P cut Ocwen Financial's rankings for residential mortgage prime, subprime, special, and subordinate-lien from Average to Below Average. S&P said that it believed "regulatory and investor scrutiny and/or actions" had affected Ocwen's operations.

As a warning to mortgage industry lenders, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is investigating Bankrate’s mortgage rate comparison tool on Bankrate.com. Bankrate discussed the CFPB investigation in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

Upon the announcement, many lenders, servicers, and other industry members weighted in with their feedback in interviews with MReport, with many expressing their gratitude and detailing the company adjustments they plan to initiate if the proposal is approved.

Today, Ginnie Mae announced its plans to thoroughly update program requirements and infrastructure in relation to loan documents that serve as collateral for securitized pools of loans.

Lenders can expect to see some changes and clarification with how the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will handle defect taxonomy and their guidelines. Today, the FHA posted its Single Family Loan Quality Assessment Methodology or “Defect Taxonomy”, which explains how FHA intends to categorize loan defects found in Single Family FHA endorsed loans today.