Government

Fitch Ratings has released its commentary on the current rends in regional home pricing, noting that significant variability persists among each area surveyed. In its recent report, Fitch also called for the nation's housing recovery to continue at an irregular and anemic pace for the duration of 2012. Citing tighter credit standards and static levels of household income, Fitch's analysis revealed that all regions are experiencing lower prices for new home sales. According to data from Fitch, the West has been hardest hit by flagging home prices.

New homes sales fell 7.1 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 328,000, the steepest percentage decline since February 2011, according to the Commerce Department. Sales for January were revised upward from 313,000 to 353,000. Economists had expected the report to show a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 318,000 new home sales in March. New-home sales in March were up 7.5 percent from March 2011. The median price of a new home fell 1.0 percent in March to $234,500, but was up 6.3 percent from March 2011.

The National Association of Mortgage Brokers has joined the coalition of professional entities petitioning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for greater clarification of the Qualified Mortgage rules within the Dodd-Frank Act. Comprised of various trade associations and housing interest groups with ties to the mortgage industry, the coalition recently submitted a letter to CFPB director Richard Cordray. As it stands now, QM legislation could be especially damaging to low- to moderate-income buyers.

Financial institutions filed 31 percent more suspicious activity reports for mortgage fraud in 2011 than in the year before, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The agency released updates that showed lenders submitted 92,028 reports for suspected mortgage fraud activity in 2011, up from 70,472 seen in 2010. The report tracked increases alongside declines from the fourth quarter, observing a 9 percent decrease in suspicious activity reports by yearend 2011.

A surge in homebuyer traffic and waxing inventory failed to prevent home prices from declining in March, according to one survey. Polling 2,500 agents for their monthly HousingPulse Tracking Survey, Campbell Surveys and Inside Mortgage Finance found Monday that home prices for non-distressed properties slid 5.7 percent year-over-year, alongside 2.5 percent for move-in ready REOs over the same time frame. Prices for short sales plummeted 14.3 percent.

Senior home equity went up by $30 billion in the fourth quarter last year, leaving senior homeowners to account for $3.22 trillion in equity, according to a recent report. The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association collaborated with Risk Span to release the Reverse Mortgage Market Index. The results? The reverse mortgage market is stabilizing, according to the index, which registered 153.48 in the fourth quarter, up 0.9 percent from the third quarter.

First-quarter results for Bank of America recently showed that the company continues to shed its role in the mortgage market, with the giant reporting year-over-year declines to $1.6 trillion for home loan portfolios for investors. The financial institution said that mortgage portfolios serviced for investors also fell to $1.3 trillion in the first quarter from $1.4 trillion last year. The balance for mortgage servicing rights climbed to $7.6 billion from $7.4 billion.

Lawmakers seated on the House Financial Services Committee recently unveiled a new online resource for members of the public to track burdens created by the Dodd-Frank Act. The so-called Dodd-Frank Burden Tracker includes a spreadsheet with rules by agency, page length, date of proposal, and more. The committee ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô comprised by conservative Republicans ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô billed the tracker as a means to transparency for some 185 of 400 rules, which currently take up more than 5,000 pages, according to information from a statement.

The mortgage industry is gaining a new technology tool targeting streamlined loan processing for originators and lenders. Launching the Quantum Mortgage Operation System, Genpact Limited is now offering a platform for real estate and banking professionals. Genpact, a technology company specializing in business processing and management solutions, will provide automation for major elements of the mortgage origination cycle through Quantum. In an official statement, Genpact noted that the platform's use of data eliminates the silos between origination, closing and secondary marketing, enabling lenders to work on each loan file simultaneously.

The House Financial Services Committee signed off on largely symbolic legislation Wednesday that would repeal bailout funds under the Dodd-Frank Act, eliminate force-placed insurance requirements, and rope the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into future congressional appropriations processes. Clearing the legislation by a party-line vote, committee members billed it as a way to slash $35 billion from the national deficit. The bill also proposed doing away with bailout mechanisms under Dodd-Frank.