Daily Dose

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 6.3 percent in May 2015 compared to this time last year, according to CoreLogic’s May 2015 Home Price Index Report (HPI). This will make 39 months of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices nationally.

Consumer attitudes toward the current condition of the home selling market and future home rental prices may launch purchase activity forward for the rest of 2015, according to Fannie Mae’s June 2015 National Housing Survey. Optimism among consumers about the housing market has reached new survey highs and strong job and income growth are making consumers appear more favorable in the selling market, indicating a possible increase in the existing home supply.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on cybersecurity last week highlighting that banks and other depository regulators need better data analytics and depository institutions want more usable threat information. The National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) & the National Credit Union Association (NCUA) both responded to the GAO's recommendation on vendor authority.

Greek citizens delivered a surprising response to Europe’s leaders on Sunday, when a majority of voters rejected a deal offered by the country’s creditors. In this historic turn of events, the Interior Ministry reported that with more than 90 percent of the vote tallied, 61 percent of the voters said no to bailout terms offered by the country's international creditors, while 39 percent voted yes to these terms. Media outlets and industry experts gauged the connection that the Greece crisis can have on the U.S. mortgage industry finding that much of the issue rests with interest rates.

The Credit Union National Association (CUNA) has asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to delay implementation of the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) Rule, also called the Know Before You Owe Mortgage Rule, until January 1, 2016. CUNA, which represents America's credit unions and their more than 100 million members, issued their request in the form of a comment submitted via email on CFPB's proposal that would delay the effective date of TRID until October 3, 2015.

There are still many opportunities for real estate investors to acquire properties, despite the decrease in inventory of foreclosed homes, according to new quarterly data from HomeVestors, the ‘We Buy Ugly Houses’ organization, and Local Market Monitor, a real estate forecasting solution. According to the data, Denver, Colorado leads the top 10 list for real estate investing, while Texas dominates the top 10 holding four spots.

In order to provide a clear time frame for claim payments, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) recently announced its proposal to establish a maximum time period for lenders to file insurance claims. The FHA also intends to revise its policy on reimbursement of eligible expenses and debenture interest when foreclosure and claim filing deadlines are missed.

Commentary is an ongoing series on theMReport.com that focuses on opinions, ideas, and insights from experts across mortgage banking. This advisory piece features Steven Russo, EVP of CertainSafe, discussing how legal practitioners hold, store, and transfer critical, privileged and highly sensitive information entrusted to them, which by default, makes them prime targets for hackers.

National Appraisal Congress (NAC) has announced the formation of the Society of Young Appraisal Professionals, an NAC subcommittee focused on addressing the declining workforce in the residential valuations space. The new subcommittee's focus will be on actively recruiting, educating, and promoting apprentice appraisers and on brainstorming ideas and developing solutions to help appraisers who have been in the valuation space for five years or less.

Consumers grow uneasy as the spring season comes to a close and recent gains in the housing market begin to decline. Clear Capital, Inc., a provider of data and solutions for real estate asset valuation and collateral risk assessment, recently released its Home Data Index (HDI) Market Report with data through June 2015 that shows that 2015 will be a non-growth year.