Origination

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS) results showed mortgage applications for new home purchases increased by 0.3 percent compared to last month for April 2015. No adjustments for typical seasonal patterns were included in this data.

Chairman of the House Financial Services Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) held a hearing yesterday to analyze how proposed changes to the real estate process will affect lenders and consumers.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently issued an update to mortgage-backed security (MBS) structure, also known as Single Security. The new changes to the Single Security structure are based on 23 responses to a “Request for Public Input: Proposed Single Security Structure (RFI)” released in August 2014 by the FHFA.

Visio Financial Services, a residential real estate marketplace lender in the U.S., revealed the results of its Annual Residential Real Estate Investor Report today. The report found that investors are expanding their property searches, buying in higher price bands, and broadening their strategies in 2015.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (New York Fed) released their Household Debt and Credit Report this week that showed household debt balances including, mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, and student loans were “largely flat for Q1 2015.”

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) released the results of their index today, noting that housing affordability nationwide received a boost for Q1 2015 due to low home prices and interest rates.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently released a new working paper titled, “How Low Can House Prices Go? Estimating a Conservative Lower Bound,” identifying a conservative lower bound for home prices in relation to long-term trend.

An Agency mortgage servicing rights deal worth approximately $45 billion between Chase and Ocwen Financial Corp. has been finalized after two and a half months, according to an announcement from Chase on Thursday. Ocwen first announced on March 2 it had signed a letter of intent to sell the $45 billion portfolio, which includes about 266,000 high-quality Fannie Mae loans, to an anonymous buyer.

A TransUnion study discovered that in spite of the rises in student-loan balances for the past decade, younger consumers have not allowed loan obligations to hinder repayment of other credit-related items such as auto loans and mortgages when compared with peers with no student loans. These findings place a contradiction on the belief that student debt is preventing young adults from accessing credit.

At this year's Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks) directors' conference, speaker FHFA Director Melvin L. Watt, delivered a speech regarding the past year of positive developments that occurred in these 12 banks.