Origination

Individuals' optimism regarding future financial prospects increased substantially from 2013 to 2014, while perceptions of current financial well-being improved only modestly, according to a survey conducted by the Federal Reserve released Wednesday. The Fed's 2014 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, which was completed by about 5,800 individuals last fall to provide insight into various aspects of Americans' personal finances such as economic security, banking, credit access and usage, housing, household debt (including education and student loan debt), savings, and preparedness for retirement.

According to a recent survey from Experian Consumer Services, 95 percent of homebuyers are aware that credit scores play a significant role when purchasing a home, and those who know their credit scores feel more prepared to buy. In addition, 45 percent of future homebuyers say they put off buying a home in order to work on their credit so that they can qualify for better interest rates.

The Multi-Indicator Market Index (MiMi) released monthly by Freddie Mac, revealed today that the housing market is continuing to stabilize with the most improving metro markets seeing stronger demand for home sales for the spring homebuying season.

Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A. recently announced in a press release. that Jim Leath has joined the company as the VP of enterprise sales and business development for all of the company’s services. Altisource provides mortgage, financial, and technology services for the real estate industry. They also provide marketplace and transaction solutions for the real estate, mortgage, and consumer debt industries offering both distribution and content.

The salary consumers need to purchase a home varies from city-to-city across the country, but San Francisco remains the most unaffordable city all consumers except those with high salaries, according to a recent HSH.com survey.

Moody's Investors Service recently released a rating action report revealing that it has downgraded the ratings of three tranches issued from Fannie Mae REMIC Trust 2001-W3.

Morgan Stanley recently released a report discussing the minutes from the April 28-29 Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting titled, “FOMC: Resolve Stirred, Not Shaken” written by Ellen Zentner, chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley.

The April 2015 First-Time Buyer Mortgage Risk Index (FBMRI) for Agency loans increased by nearly a full percentage point year-over-year up to 15.28 percent, indicating that those mortgage loans are moving deeper into the high-risk category, according to data released this week by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)'s International Center on Housing Risk.

According to jointly released estimates by HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau, sales of new single-family houses in April 2015 increased 6.8 percent from last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 517,000 units. The March rate was 484,000 units and is 26.1 percent above the estimate of 410,000 for April 2014.

Credit Plus Inc., a provider of intelligent insight for mortgage professionals based in Salisbury, Maryland, has announced in a press release that Colleen Knapp will be joining their sales team as SVP, national product specialist.