Headlines

Fannie Mae’s book of business declined for the first three months of this year, ending the first quarter with a monthly compound annualized rate of -1.8 percent. Over the first quarter, the GSE’s book of business declined at a compound annualized rate of 2.2 percent. Fannie’s gross mortgage portfolio has also been on the decline over the first three months of this year, though at a much slower rate in March than in the first two months of the year.

After nearly two years of frenzied price appreciation, home price gains are expected to drop off, according to the latest report from Veros Real Estate Solutions, a provider of enterprise risk management, collateral valuation, and predictive analytics. However, Veros does not cast a negative outlook for the market. Rather, the firm anticipates a stable market with slow price appreciation. “The wave of appreciation may have crested, but it has been an impressive recovery in many respects,” said Eric Fox, VP of statistical an economic modeling at Veros.

In an interview with host Louis Amaya for "Mortgage Markets Today," LRES founder and CEO Roger Beane asserted that even though there have been many changes in the real estate and mortgage banking industry, appraisers will always be in demand: "Our customers have told us they are still very interested in having the signature from a licensed appraiser attesting to the value."

Out of Honolulu, Collateral Analytics announced the launch of CA Credit Risk Model, a new product intended to offer comprehensive, quantitative measures of the risk and cost of potential borrower default in a residential mortgage.

DocuTech Corp., a specialist in compliance and documentation technology, announced a promotion among its ranks: Justin Summers was named director of implementations and professional services for the Idaho-based firm.

International Document Services, Inc. (IDS), a mortgage document preparation vendor headquartered in Salt Lake City, recorded significant growth in the number of e-signed document packages processed by the company in 2013.

Employers across the country added 288,000 jobs to their payrolls in April, bringing the unemployment rate down to a new post-crash low. According to the latest report from the Labor Department, the rate of unemployment last month fell to 6.3 percent, down nearly half a percentage point after a flat March. At an estimated 9.8 million, the number of unemployed people was down by 733,000.

A recent break-even horizon analysis by Zillow finds buying a home remains a better longer-term financial decision than renting in half of U.S. metros. "Rents keep rising, and mortgage interest rates remain very low, which is helping to skew the rent vs. buy decision toward buying for those who can afford it," said Zillow chief economist Dr. Stan Humphries.

According to figures released Thursday by the Commerce Department, total construction spending in March bumped up 0.2 percent to an estimated adjusted annual rate of $942.5 billion. Compared to a year prior, March spending was up 8.4 percent. In the private sector, construction spending was put at an estimated rate of $679.6 billion, with residential projects accounting for $369.8 billion of that total.

In its weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey, Freddie Mac recorded the average 30-year fixed rate at 4.29 percent (0.7 point) for the week ending May 1, down from 4.33 percent. Freddie Mac’s chief economist, Frank Nothaft, pinned the declines on disappointing numbers for gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter. According to an advance estimate, the economy expanded at a rate of 0.1 percent last quarter, well short of market forecasts.