Data

The always-expensive Manhattan real estate market has gained a sky-high listing with an equally lofty price tag, with the former home of architect Paul Rudolph recently hitting the market for $27.5 million. According to Curbed, Rudolph is famous for creating "some of the country's best known Brutalist structures," and his legendary former residence boasts three spacious apartments which are now for sale collectively.

Mortgage fraud cases declined by 15 percent over the third quarter of this year, while the dollar amount involved in mortgage fraud cases declined by just 6 percent, according to the Third Quarter 2012 Mortgage Fraud Index released Monday by MortgageDaily.com. This disparity in declines points to an increase in the amount of money involved in each case during the quarter, according to Mortgage Daily. The total dollar amount of loans involved in mortgage fraud cases in Q3 was $1.7 billion, up from $1.3 billion in the same period last year.

Pennsylvania's GMH Mortgage Services LLC announced the addition of Bill Bogle as SVP of capital markets. Bogle has worked in the mortgage industry for more than 15 years, having served most recently at New Penn Financial as VP of secondary marketing.

Kinecta Federal Credit Union's mortgage volume reached more than $3 billion at the end of October, exceeding its 2011 volume with a full quarter still remaining.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) has been elected chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Hensarling replaces Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama) who headed the committee for the past six years.

A recently released study shows that a vast majority of consumers would consider looking to non-banks for their next mortgage.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refinanced more than 90,000 mortgages through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) in September.

After experiencing a one-month lull, mortgage insurance activity picked up in October. According to data from Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA), member companies wrote 42,833 insurance policies in October. In dollar volume, members reported $11.5 billion in insurance written throughout the month. October's volume was a significant step up from September, which saw 37,554 policies totaling $10.1 billion. A year ago, member companies reported 26,293 policies written for $5.1 billion.

Amid an improving commercial real estate market, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) predicts declining vacancy rates in all sectors of commercial real estate in the coming year. The greatest vacancy decline is expected among office properties. Office vacancies should fall about one percentage point over the year, dropping from 16.7 percent to 15.7 percent. While the smallest vacancy decline is expected in the multifamily sector, NAR states there is "a full recovery already in the multifamily market."

It seems more banks are eyeing the possibility of expansion in 2013, according to a survey sponsored by Crowe Horwath LLP. According to the results, 57 percent of banks intend to make some form of acquisition in the next year, up from last year's survey. Furthermore, many bankers expressed interest in acquisitions outside of their core banking franchises. Out of the banks that are looking at expanding, 28.8 percent said they intend to acquire a residential mortgage origination business in 2013.