Following a trend maintained over the past nine quarters, the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA's) Home Price Index (HPI) posted an increase over the third quarter. The index, which incorporates sales data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, rose 2 percent over the third quarter and 8.4 percent over the year. Also notable, the third quarter is the first time since 2009 that national home prices are higher than they were five years earlier, according to FHFA.

National home prices rose 0.2 percent over the month in September, reaching $232,000 for the month, according to Lender Processing Services' (LPS) Home Price Index, which was released Monday. Year-over-year prices rose 9 percent in September, according to LPS. Nevada and Connecticut posted the greatest price changes over the month--though in opposite directions. Home prices in Nevada jumped 0.8 percent over the month, while prices in Connecticut fell 0.9 percent.

With the federal government shutdown and debt ceiling negotiations still fresh in the nation's collective mind, Fannie Mae expects "continued market volatility" heading into the start of 2014.

Though tightened underwriting standards have been partly to blame for why housing isn't recovering faster, CoreLogic's Sam Khater says the silver lining is that loan performance has improved greatly. "While there has been much consternation about underwriting being too tight in the context of forthcoming mortgage regulations, one underappreciated outcome has been the very good performance of mortgages during the last few years," Khater said in an article in CoreLogic's most recent Marketpulse report.

In the third quarter, 1.4 million homeowners rose to the surface as their home values once again outranked their equity, according to the Zillow Negative Equity Report.

Next year will likely be the first year since 2000 that home purchases outpace refinances, according to Freddie Mac's expectations.

Republic Mortgage Insurance Corporation faces a $100,000 fine and enhanced supervision by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for allegedly offering illegal kickbacks to lenders in return for business referrals, according to an announcement from CFPB. "The CFPB believes that RMIC provided kickbacks to mortgage lenders by purchasing captive reinsurance that was essentially worthless but was designed to make a profit for the lenders," the bureau said in its announcement.

Rising home sales and declining foreclosure sales have driven the highest quarterly price increase since the national housing market recovery began, according to the FNC Residential Price Index released Friday. Prices rose 2.5 percent over the quarter, according to FNC. Phoenix posted the highest cumulative price gain since the start of the recovery--a 46.2 percent increase. The rest of the top five gains were recorded in Las Vegas (38.3 percent), Riverside, California (23.5 percent), Los Angeles (22.7 percent), and Orlando, Florida (20.5 percent).

Customer satisfaction with mortgage loan originators reached a seven-year high this year with Quicken Loans earning the highest ranking for the fourth year in a row, according to the J.D. Power 2013 U.S. Primary Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study. Five originators earned scores above the industry average. Topping the list was Quicken Loans with a score of 841 out of 1000. The remaining four lenders to outrank the industry average are BB&T (798), U.S. Bank (783), PNC Mortgage (778), and Chase (773).

With the implementation date for the ability-to-repay and qualified mortgage (QM) guidelines creeping ever close, Fitch Ratings expects it will have to adapt its ratings process to work them in.