Featured

On Wednesday, the Urban Institute (UI) issued a report finding that, based on the latest numbers, Ginnie's book of business is now at $1.5 trillion—a rate of growth that has tripled over the last seven years. What this means is that at its current rate of growth, Ginnie Mae will soon surpass Freddie Mac as the silver medalist in the single-family mortgage securitization platform game, behind Fannie Mae.

According to Realtor.com, the median listing price of homes in May this year was $214,900, a rise of 8 percent compared to year-ago levels. "This May's housing market stands in significant contrast to last year in which price increases were less generalized and more concentrated in specific metropolitan areas," the company said. "This broad increase in price suggests a more evenly distributed recovery and a healthier national housing market."

Analyzing data as of the end of May, Black Knight Financial Services reported another gain in monthly prepayment activity—an indicator of refinancing—marking the third straight month of increases. At the same time, long-term fixed mortgage rates fell to 4.19 percent, their lowest level in more than half a year. Meanwhile, Black Knight also found that seasonal purchase origination activity has risen, with approximately 897,000 originations through April.

Macroeconomic research company Capital Economics calculated a 0.1 percent decline in total loan application volumes throughout June following a 1.8 percent uptick in May. The company's figures are based on weekly reports put out by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). So far this year, applications have risen in three months and fallen in the other three.

As scrutiny continues to grow in the servicing arena, the watchdog for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) says it has concerns about non-bank servicers working with GSE loans. Out of the 30 largest servicers, FHFA OIG says that non-banks held a 17 percent share of mortgage market as of the end of 2013, representing nearly $1.7 trillion. As a result, the report says these non-bank companies may have taken on more volume than they can handle.

Property analytics firm CoreLogic reported an 8.8 percent year-over-year increase in its May Home Price Index (HPI), marking 27 straight months of annual improvement. Taking out distressed sales, the HPI was up 8.1 percent year-on-year. May's figure represents another slowdown in the annual rate of home price gains, which are now down almost 3 percentage points compared to only a few months ago.

AEI's National Mortgage Risk Index (NMRI), released monthly through the institute's International Center on Housing Risk, registered 11.87 percent for May, down from April's revised reading. The institute considers any index value below 6 percent as "indicative of conditions conducive to a stable market." The index acts as a stress test, measuring the percentage of loans at risk of default in the event of another economic crisis.

Pending home sales surged in May, spurred by lower interest rates and increased inventory, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Monday. The group's Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), which measures contract signings as an indicator of future sales figures, jumped 6.1 percent month-over-month to 103.9. It was the largest one-month increase since April 2010.

As the U.S. economy continues to improve, the challenges facing the banking industry gradually shift from recovery to risk management in an effort to avoid the pitfalls that contributed to the financial crisis, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) said in its Semiannual Risk Perspective for Spring 2014. OCC warned that banks' boards of directors and senior managers should monitor heightened exceptions to traditional underwriting standards.

In its latest barometer report, Trulia says new construction starts, existing-home sales and delinquency and foreclosure rates have all come closer to normalizing over the last quarter. One factor still hampering the recovery, however, is the unemployment rate among Millennials—a key group for household formation and first-time homeownership.