Home purchase mortgage activity is limping along in 2011 as high levels of both distressed properties and cash sales continue to weigh down the housing market. According to new numbers released by the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey, the Distressed Property Index decreased slightly in April but still remained at an elevated level of 47.7 percent. An abundance of distressed properties in the housing market is cutting into home purchase lending. The new HousingPulse Survey results show that the share of damaged real estate owned – the hardest sector of home sales to obtain traditional financing – jumped from [Includes one graph]

Mortgage delinquency rates improved in almost all categories, and although they’re still high, it could signal a positive turning point, according to recent reports. The Inside Mortgage Finance Larger Servicer Delinquency Index showed an overall delinquency rate at 10.27 percent in the first quarter, down from 11.25 percent in 4Q10, and the lowest seen since the 9.39 percent rate in 1Q09. Improvements were seen in every category of delinquency from last quarter. Loans 30-60 days delinquent went from 2.81 percent to 2.41 percent, 60-90 days delinquent from 1.25 percent to 1.01 percent and loans over 90 days delinquent from... [Includes one data chart]

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will host workshops for directors of nationally chartered community banks and federal savings associations in New York at the Hilton New York, June 28-29, 2011...

Staff at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and other legal professionals are scrutinizing the fundamental questions the foreclosure crisis has raised about the adequacy of the legal framework for modern mortgage note transactions, especially when it comes to transferring and enforcing notes and mortgages, and how best to resolve them. The role of the Mortgage Electronic Registration System is a part of the discussion. To date, they are relying upon a number of issues that have been identified in a draft discussion document prepared recently by the Permanent Editorial Board of the Uniform Commercial Code, in conjunction with...

FHA loans in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware performed better in 2008 and in 2009 than in 2006 and 2007 as credit quality became stronger, according to a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The findings should allay concerns of policymakers in Washington, DC, that FHA defaults have risen during the housing crisis and may put the federal mortgage insurance fund in peril, the study said. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, one of the data sources used by Fed analysts, indicate that overall lending patterns in the Third District states have ...

The federal government's gradual pullback as an investor in the MBS market is beginning to open more space for commercial banks and other private investors. Commercial banks increased their investment in residential MBS by a solid 6.5 percent during the first quarter, pushing their combined holdings to a record $1.311 trillion. That represented about 20.0 percent of an overall MBS market that has been shrinking since the third quarter of 2009. Bank holdings of residential MBS were up 14.2 percent from the first quarter of last year. Through the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the retained holdings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal government held... [Includes two data charts]

Effective July 1, reporting of tax information to investors of Ginnie Mae securities will move from e-Access to the Ginnie Mae Enterprise-Wide Portal (GMEP), which now serves as the single access point for all of the agency's online business applications. The e-Access function for uploading quarterly widely held fixed investment trust (WHFIT) reporting files for investors would no longer ...

Government housing policy and agencies played a much larger role in the housing crisis than initially believed, but a fresh look at the conclusions of two GSE critics has prompted a top JPMorgan Chase analyst to take the unusual step of issuing a public retraction.

Faced with a declining originations outlook, mortgage lenders should take advantage of today's more plentiful warehouse lending environment to review strategies that were developed during the liquidity crisis, industry experts say. The warehouse capacity issue has swung 180 degrees from where it was a few years ago, said Elaine Batlis, a senior vice president at Silvergate Bank, during last week's national secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Back in 2006-07, there was an oasis of liquidity; pricing was good and terms were flexible, Batlis said. But in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, there was a sudden...

Although the new repurchase claims submitted by investors to mortgage lenders appeared to ease in the first quarter of 2011, the industry continues to carry a growing inventory of unresolved buyback demands. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported that lender repurchases or indemnifications totaled $2.8 billion during the first quarter of 2011. That was down from $5.9 billion in the previous quarter, a figure that was swollen by Bank of America's large-scale settlement of buyback demands from both government-sponsored enterprises. In fact, the volume of GSE repurchases during the first three months of 2011 was the lowest quarterly volume since... [Includes one graph and one data chart]