Homeowners saw their equity increase year over year while negative equity declined, according to the latest CoreLogic Homeowner Equity Insight report. CoreLogic states that U.S. homeowners with mortgages have seen their equity increase by a total of nearly $485.7 billion since the first quarter 2018, a 5.6% year over year increase. However, negative equity rose in that time as well, but is still Continue Reading

Research from the Black Knight indicates that the current demand for houses is largely driven by families seeking to purchase homes and not by speculators, which, according to the Urban Institute, means that we are at less risk of entering a housing bubble. Urban Institute’s analysis of Black Knight’s house price index (HPI) reveals that home prices appear to be losing momentum. In comparison Continue Reading

The share of home mortgage loan payments that are 30 days or more past due fell to a 20-year low of 4.0% in January, down from 4.1% in December and from 4.9% in January 2018. The foreclosure inventory rate fell year over year from 0.6% to 0.4%, also a 20-year low. The foreclosure rate has now dropped below the average pre-crisis level of 0.6% as rising home values have driven homeowners' equity Continue Reading

February marks 8th consecutive month of annual decrease in foreclosure activity There was a moderate drop in foreclosures in February, according to ATTOM Data Solutions' latest Foreclosure Market Report. According to the Foreclosure Market Report, there was a 3% decline from the previous month and an 11% year-over-year decrease from 2018. Notably, only 54,783 U.S. properties were listed as Continue Reading

Nation’s delinquency rate at 18-year low, thanks to sound economy, reforms It’s a real estate and social barometer that doesn’t get a lot of publicity, but it’s important: More Americans are paying their mortgages on time today than they have in nearly two decades, maybe even longer. That’s a big deal, because when large numbers of owners do the opposite — stop paying on their home loans for Continue Reading

The last of six defendants who admitted roles in a $4 million mortgage fraud scheme was sentenced Wednesday to more than seven years in prison, according to the state Attorney General’s Office. The scheme preyed on people trying to save their homes from foreclosure, and included filing fraudulent documents, such as false bankruptcies and false court filings, the office said in a news release. It Continue Reading

The government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, completed 12,902 foreclosure prevention actions in November, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA's) Foreclosure Prevention Report for that month. Along with those completed in November, the total foreclosure preventions by the GSEs since the start of their conservatorship now total more than 4.2 million. Continue Reading

Despite debt-to-income ratios rising in recent years, delinquencies have remained low in the five years since the Ability to Repay (ATR) requirements were introduced under the Dodd-Frank Act, according to the findings of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB's) long-awaited report on the Ability to Repay (ATR) and the Qualified Mortgage (QM) Rule (ATR-QM Rule). The report, which looks Continue Reading

Michaela Christian lost a long battle with Wells Fargo in 2013 to save her Las Vegas home, a defeat she says changed the course of her life. When the bank refused to modify her mortgage, Christian moved in with a friend and scrambled to rebuild her life. Five years later, Wells Fargo admits it made a mistake. Christian, 46, qualified for the kind of mortgage help that may have saved her home Continue Reading

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took action to prevent more than 63,000 foreclosures in the third quarter of the year, raising the total number of foreclosure prevention actions to more than 4.24 million since September of 2008, the Federal Housing Financial Authority reported on Thursday. Additionally, there were 2,159 completed short sales and deeds-in-lieu during the quarter, bringing the total Continue Reading