Daily Dose

Thirty-one percent of homebuyers living in the state were able to afford a median-priced existing single-family home last quarter, the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) said Thursday. While that was a slight improvement from 30 percent in Q3, it was down from a revised 32 percent in 2013's closing months, the group reported.

Late last year, real estate firm Zillow reported that renters living in the United States paid a cumulative $441 billion in rents throughout 2014, a nearly 5 percent annual increase spurred by rising numbers of renters and climbing prices. Results from a more recent survey conducted by Zillow and Pulsenomics suggest that rent prices will continue to be a problem for the aspiring homeowner for years to come.

Quality features of the bulk servicing portfolio include 100 percent fixed-rate and first lien product, a weighted average original FICO score of 755, a weighted average original LTV ratio of 80 percent, and a weighted average interest rate of 3.9 percent.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said Thursday that new home purchase applications rose 29 percent from December to January, not including any seasonal adjustments. The group pulled its data from its monthly Builder Application Survey, which tracks application volumes from mortgage subsidiaries of homebuilders.

Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ending February 12 shows the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) was 3.69 percent (0.6 point) this week, up a full 10 basis points from last week's 2015 low of 3.59 percent.

FHFA, which is suing on behalf of the RMBS pools' trustees, claims that Morgan Stanley committed a breach of contract by failing to buy back the poor performing loans, which were pooled into securities and sold to Freddie Mac in 2007, according to reports.

The national median price for existing single-family homes in the fourth quarter of 2014 was $208,700, up 6.0 percent from the same quarter in 2013, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). That was better than the third quarter, which saw 4.8 percent annual growth.

Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP alerted HLSS shareholders on Tuesday about the suit, which targets HLSS for not being open about the company's close relationship with Ocwen, which has suffered from wave after wave of regulatory setbacks in the last year.

According to CoreLogic, cash sales made up 36.1 percent of total home sales in November, down from 38.8 percent a year prior. The drop marks the 23rd straight month of year-over-year declines, CoreLogic said. Compared to October, the cash sales share was up about half a percentage point, "as is typical for the fall and winter months."

Castro faced the House Committee on Financial Services and explained why he believes that FHA is in a "strong" position to lower its premiums by 50 basis points down to 0.85 percent despite the MMI Fund's value falling well short of the 2 percent threshold it is required by law to maintain.