Featured

According to a joint release from the Commerce Department and HUD, homebuilders broke ground on new projects at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.02 million last month, 6.3 percent above August's revised estimate of 957,000 (just barely up from the government's initial estimate).

Community financial institutions are putting more of their resources toward compliance, according to compliance management systems firm Continuity Control. The firm's 2014 Third Quarter Banking Compliance Index revealed that in order to comply with the 82 regulatory changes added in Q3, 653 additional hours were required of the average community bank.

Buying a home is still cheaper than renting in most markets across the country, and even cheaper than a year ago, according to the latest Rent vs. Buy report from Trulia. According to Trulia, when the purchase includes 20 percent down and a fixed 30-year mortgage, buying is 38 percent cheaper than renting.

The National Association of Home Builders' (NAHB) index of builder sentiment fell in October, ending a four-month streak of gains that resulted in a nine-year peak. The group's Housing Market Index, a measure of homebuilder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes, lost five points in this month’s reading, bringing it to 54. An index value above 50 indicates market perceptions are more positive than negative.

Monthly home price appreciation gained steam in August even as a growing number of markets reported declines, according to FNC, Inc. The company's Residential Price Index (RPI) posted national growth of 0.8 percent in August, accelerating from July's 0.6 percent increase. Not all cities saw an acceleration, however.

In a report released Wednesday, Wolters Kluwer Financial Services (WKFS) said its Regulatory & Risk Management Indicator increased again to 128, reflecting a 28 percent rise since its baseline score established in January 2013. Looking at compliance challenges, 72 percent of banker respondents listed "maintaining compliance with changing regulations" as one of their top concerns, up from 67 percent at the start of last year.

Bank of America reported on Wednesday its earnings for the third quarter, revealing that profits tanked under the weight of a massive legal charge stemming from a recent mortgage settlement with the Justice Department. Factoring in the settlement, BofA's mortgage unit was the only one of its five businesses that didn't see income grow over the last year.

RealtyTrac's election housing scorecard rated 1,547 county housing markets in the U.S. based on five factors that affect the health of housing. A total of 811 U.S. county housing markets (52 percent) were rated as "better off" than they were two years ago, compared to only 11 percent (176 markets) categorized as "worse off."

Third-quarter profits improved annually at two of the nation's biggest megabanks, though mortgage banking results were mixed. For the latest completed quarter, JPMorgan Chase reported net income of $5.6 billion compared to a loss of $380 million a year ago. On the other side of the country, Wells Fargo posted profits of $5.7 billion for the quarter, up from $5.6 billion in Q3 2013 and flat from Q2 2014.

William A. Ackman, head of Pershing Square, and Bruce Berkowitz, head of Fairholme Capital, have both added to their respective stakes in the two GSEs. In the last week of September, Judge Royce Lambert threw out lawsuits filed by Fairholme and Perry Capital against the government claiming that the sweeping of GSE profits into Treasury was illegal. The judge ruled the sweeping of the profits was legal under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act.