News

According to CoreLogic's latest Home Price Index report, home prices nationwide rose 12.2 percent (including distressed sales) in February compared to the year prior. The change represents 24 months of consecutive yearly gains. On a monthly basis, home prices inched up 0.8 percent from January’s revised index. Moving forward, CoreLogic says indicators point to slower increases.

Fannie Mae announced Friday revisions to its maximum fee assessment for servicers submitting late or inaccurate loan reports. According to the announcement, Fannie will fine servicers the greater of $250 or $50 per mortgage loan, with maximums starting at $5,000 for the first instance and climbing up to $15,000 for repeated incidents. The new fee structure goes into effect May 1, 2014.

In a recent report, Fitch Ratings notes that new servicing oversight will yield higher fixed costs, as technology and process enhancements are made in order to comply with the new guidelines. This increase in cost will push non-bank servicers to grow their portfolios, and Fitch suggests “strong forces are still in place to further incent both outright MSR sales and subservicing arrangements, thus heightening scrutiny of such transactions."

PCV Murcor, a California-based provider of real estate valuations for the industry’s largest institutions, announced its recent membership in a group aiming to create more standardized, efficient third-party oversight audits.

According to a report released by Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan, consumer sentiment retreated last month to an index reading of 80.0, down 2 percent from February’s 81.6. The most immediate concern, according to the survey, is the ongoing slowdown in home value gains. Given the stall in price improvements and the increase in interest rates over the last year, plans to purchase homes are reportedly on the decline.

Super-regional mortgage bank Mortgage Master announced the expansion of its brand and Midwest infrastructure with the opening of a new retail branch office in Northbrook, Illinois.

Contract mortgage interest rates decreased slightly from January to February, according to data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). The agency reported late March that the national average contract rate for the purchase of previously occupied homes was 4.30 percent for loans closed in late February, a decline of 0.07 percent. Meanwhile, the average loan amount for all loans was down $8,700 to an average $275,700.

Has the housing market reached bubble status once again? The answer—at least, according to Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko—is both yes and no. In the company’s latest quarterly Bubble Watch report, Kolko estimates national home prices are still around 5 percent undervalued when examining long-term fundamentals like historical prices, incomes, and rents.

Clear Capital released its Home Data Index Market Report with data through March 2014, noting mostly flatness as the winter came to an end. "Our data through the end of March reveals prices remained steady through the final weeks of winter, a sigh of relief to all market participants," said Dr. Alex Villacorta, VP of research and analytics at Clear Capital.

Freddie Mac’s book of business declined during both of the first two months of this year with an annualized growth rate of -2.2 percent during the month of February, according to the GSE’s monthly volume summary. Year-to-date, the annualized growth rate for Freddie Mac’s portfolio is -2.0 percent, on par with the growth rate of -2.1 percent reported for the year in 2013.