Data

On an annual basis, 2012 was the strongest year for originations since 2007, according to Lender Processing Services' December Mortgage Monitor.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance jumped 38,000 to 368,000 for the week ending January 26, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected a smaller increase to 350,000 from the prior week's 330,000 initial claims. The weekly jump in initial claims was the first in three weeks. It reflected, in part, a drop in the seasonal adjustment factor the Labor Department applies to the raw data, which includes holiday workers whose jobs were eliminated.

With a nod to the report the nation's economy had contracted in the fourth quarter, the Federal Open Market Committee ("FOMC") voted Wednesday to continue its program of purchasing $40 million a month of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and to maintain the target Fed Funds rate at 0 to 0.25 percent. The FOMC vote was 11-1 with only Kansas City Fed President Esther George (in her first meeting as a voting member of the committee) voting "no."

McLean Mortgage Corporation, a privately held full-service mortgage lender based in Fairfax, Virginia, announced that the company closed more than $1.5 billion in mortgage volume in 2012, a 140 percent increase in production levels over 2011.

Irvine, California-based CoreLogic announced the availability of CoreLogic Bond Tracker, a new bond assessment service for non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS).

The average credit score among online mortgage shoppers is rising and is well above the overall national average, according to a recent study by MortgageMarvel.com.

Lincoln, Nebraska recorded a best-in-the-nation 3.4 percent unemployment rate in December as unemployment rates dropped in 290 of the 372 metropolitan areas in the county, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Wednesday.

Mortgage applications declined for the week ending January 25, according to application data from the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey. The survey's Market Composite Index, a measure of application volume, decreased 8.1 percent week-over-week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the association reported. The results include an adjustment for the Martin Luther King holiday. After reaching a two and a half year high last week, purchase applications also dipped.

For the first time since the end of the Great Recession, real gross domestic product (GDP) fell in the fourth quarter of 2012, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported. According to the BEA, GDP fell 0.1 percent in Q4, performing even worse than economists had expected. The biggest hits to fourth quarter GDP came from a sharp drop in government spending, which fell 6.6 percent from the third quarter. Private investment fell 0.6 percent, primarily due to inventory investments and a fall-off in exports.

Following S&P's calculation of a 0.1 percent decrease in prices in November, analysis on home price data remained positive.