Daily Dose

Two hearings examining the activities of government agencies and two hearings covering the nation's monetary policy and economy will take place in Congress this week. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will be the lone witness in the two hearings on monetary policy.

Although home sales in the U.S. have reached their highest peak since 2007 during the first four months of 2015, foreign homebuyers are not adding to these growing sales. According to a blog by Frank Nothaft, CoreLogic’s chief economist, in relation to the same period one year ago, home sales jumped 9 percent with the help of lower fixed mortgage rates by one-half percentage point, but foreign buyers did not help with this increase.

The issuance of new U.S. prime jumbo residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) is set to exceed last year’s levels thanks to a strong second quarter of RMBS issuance, according to Fitch Ratings’ quarterly U.S. Prime Jumbo RMBS Trends report. The Fitch report notes that eight jumbo RMBS deals came to market in second-quarter 2015 from six issuers.

Today, Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen delivered a speech at the City Club of Cleveland in Cleveland, Ohio speaking on the recent developments within the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and the economic outlook moving forward. Yellen addressed issues like recession recovery, labor market conditions, inflation developments, economic outlook, monetary policy, long-run economic growth.

Witnesses at a recent House Financial Services Committee hearing testified the Dodd-Frank Act has "reduced financial stability" and made Americans worse off financially in the controversial law's first five years of existence. The hearing, titled "Dodd-Frank Five Years Later: Are We More Stable?" was the first in a series of three full Committee hearings to examine the impact Dodd-Frank has had on American consumers and the country's financial system and economy since President Obama signed it in to law in July 2010.

Like-kind exchanges in the real estate market are an important factor for property acquisition and disposal, and they also support the nation's financial growth, job creation, and economy, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

As the spring homebuying season comes to a close and Americans cope with the uncertain after effects of the Greek crisis on the economy, the U.S. Treasuries lowered average fixed mortgage rates down to 4.04 percent, according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) results.

Federal housing officials that are in place to monitor and control thousands of government-backed loans worth millions of dollars have not handled these loans correctly for Native Americans. According to the Office of Inspector General (OIG) review for HUD's Office of Loan Guarantee (OLG) did not provide adequate oversight of the Section 184 Indian Home Loan Guarantee program, resulting in an increased overall risk to the program.

The debate over whether "too big to fail" has ended and the criteria for designating a bank holding company as "systemically important" under Dodd-Frank has continued this week as lawmakers convened to discuss the controversial law and its effect on the American financial system.

Although Federal Reserve officials determined that economic activity is expanding moderately and job gains are increasing, the federal funds rate will remain the same at a target range of 0 to ¼ percent, according to the recent Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) June meeting.