Existing home sales rose again in January, for the third consecutive month, with the annual rate of 5.36 million marking the first time in seven months that sales activity was higher than a year earlier.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR)released their monthly report on existing home sales on Wednesday.

Home sales are now 5.3 percent above the 5.09 million level in January 2010.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the improvement is good but could be better. “The uptrend in home sales is consistent with improvements in the economy and jobs, which are helping boost consumer confidence,” he said.

He continued, “The extremely favorable housing affordability conditions are a big factor, but buyers have

been constrained by unnecessarily tight credit. As a result, there are abnormally high levels of all-cash purchases, along with rising investor activity.”

A parallel NAR survey shows that first-time buyers purchased 29 percent of homes in January, down from 33 percent in December. Investors accounted for 23 percent of purchases in January, up from 20 percent in December.

All-cash sales rose to 32 percent in January from 29 percent in December, and they are now at the highest level since NAR began measuring them in October 2008.

“Increases in all-cash transactions, the investor market share and distressed home sales all go hand-in-hand. With tight credit standards, it’s not surprising to see so much activity where cash is king and investors are taking advantage of conditions to purchase undervalued homes,” Yun said.

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $158,800 in January, down 3.7 percent from January 2010. The median home price in December was $168,800. Distressed homes edged up to a 37 percent market share in January from 36 percent in December.

NAR President Ron Phipps, said the median price is being dampened by unusual market factors. “Unprecedented levels of all-cash purchases, primarily of distressed homes sold at deep discounts, undoubtedly pulls the median price downward,” he said. “Given the levels of inventory we see today, we believe that traditional homes in good condition have held their value.”

Source- www.dsnews.com

Three of the top five lenders use Point In Time for retro income verification, according to Equifax. Point In Time, a service that validates and documents a borrower’s employment and income at the point of loan funding, is provided by Equifax’s the Work Number, the largest source for employer employment and income verifications.

“With the significant increase in repurchases and mortgage insurance rescissions, Point In Time is the preferred service to help lenders investigate requests-proven by its high adoption rate among the leading

financial institutions,” said Janet Ford, SVP of the Work Number. “With Point In Time, lenders save time and costs associated with responding to repurchase requests as well as potentially avoid costly buybacks.”

Point In Time delivers income data to confirm original verification information, providing a cost-effective method to re-verify a borrower’s income without compromising data security, according to the Atlanta-based company.

“In 2011, financial institutions will give priority to loan modifications, foreclosures, and repurchases as indicated by strong initiatives announced since the start of the year,” said Ford. “To respond to the growing repurchase problem, institutions like Bank of America are even establishing company units dedicated to servicing defaulted loans.”

According to Dann Adams, president of the Work Number, mortgage repurchases are growing.

“According to reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac alone have made more than $13 billion in recent repurchase requests – so many that lenders are unable to respond in a timely manner,” Adams said. “Soon, we will see the consequences of not responding; therefore, lenders need a solution like Point In Time to efficiently and quickly defend their loans and prove underwriting due diligence.”

Source- www.dsnews.com

North Dakota and Arkansas were the only states in which 90-plus day delinquencies did not decline.

The total U.S. mortgage delinquency rate (8.22 percent) reported by MBA does not include loans that are already in the process of foreclosure. While all delinquency buckets posted declines during the fourth quarter of last year, loans in foreclosure tied the all-time record high in MBA’s survey as resolutions were delayed following the industry’s robo-signing debacle and the foreclosure moratoriums that followed in October.

According to MBA’s latest report, the percentage of loans in the foreclosure process at the end of the fourth quarter was 4.63 percent, up 24 basis points from the third quarter of 2010 and up five basis points from one year ago.

The percentage of loans on which foreclosure actions were started during the fourth quarter, however, was 1.27 percent, down seven basis points from the previous three-month period.

MBA says the combined percentage of loans in foreclosure or at least one payment past due was 13.56 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, a 22 basis point decline from 13.78 percent in the prior quarter.

“While delinquency and foreclosure rates are still well above historical norms, we have clearly turned the corner,” Brinkmann said.

He noted that despite continued high levels of unemployment, the economy did add over 1.2 million private sector jobs during 2010 and, after remaining stubbornly high during the first half of 2010, first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell during the second half of the year – all factors that bode well for the nation’s mortgage delinquency picture.

“Absent a significant economic reversal, the delinquency picture should continue to improve during 2011,” Brinkmann said.

Source- www.dsnews.com