While activity increased on mortgage fraud cases being prosecuted in California, New York also saw acceleration in fraud and fraud activity in Minnesota zoomed, Florida’s mortgage fraud index topped the list for the Third-Quarter 2011 Mortgage Fraud Index from MortgageDaily.com. Read More »

The UFA Default Risk Index for the fourth quarter of 2011 edged lower to 131 from last quarter’s revised 133, which has suggests that residential mortgage default and prepayment risks are continuing their return to normalcy. Read More »

Mortgage banks made an average profit of $1,263 on each loan they originated in the third quarter of 2011, up from $575 per loan in the second quarter of 2011 and $346 per loan in the first quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That’s a 377 percent increase over a six month period. Read More »

After rising slightly to a rate of 6.02 percent in the first quarter, 60-day mortgage delinquencies will resume their decline, falling to about 5 percent of all performing mortgages by the end of next year Read More »

During the boom, the only way first-time buyers, minorities and working families could afford to buy a home was through subprime and creative financing. Now that homeownership is affordable, new barriers to financing and competition with investors are locking them out of homeownership and changing the residential fabric of our communities from ownership to rental. Read More »

Home prices have declined steadily over the past three months and now trail last year by 3.9 percent, according to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index. Read More »

Nearly half, 45 percent, of October foreclosure starts were redefaults-mortgages which had previously defaulted and were modified unsuccessfully either by the lender or the federal government. About 105,000 redefaults increased total foreclosure starts in October to 232,865, 11.5 percent more than the level of a year ago. Read More »

A surge in sales contracts signed in October announced by NAR yesterday that inspired hopes of a fall boomlet actually will problem have no impact at all on closed sales. Read More »

In a time of 4 percent mortgages and programs like HARP designed to help homeowners refinance at lower rates, more than 15 million homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages are paying rates higher than 5 percent. Read More »

This year sales of existing homes could exceed five million, a barrier broken only once since the housing markets crashed in 2007. Read More »