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The GDP growth rate in the first quarter, which was reported to be an annual rate of minus 0.2 percent in the  BEA's third and final estimate released in late June , was revised upwardly and reported on Thursday to be 0.6 percent. "These results are in line with years past when we have had a very weak first quarters followed by more normal second quarters," said Mark Fleming, Chief Economist with First American. "The quarter-over-quarter jump isn't a signal of rebounding, but is simply a return to more normal rates of growth. The 2.3 percent rate for the second quarter is probably in line with where we will land at the end of the year—2.3 percent for 2015." The Q2 increase in real GDP reflected "positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, state and local government spending, and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by negative contributions from federal government spending, private inventory in...

The  J.D. Power   2015 U.S. Primary Mortgage Servicer Satisfaction study  released Thursday found that servicers are spending too much time and resources focusing on at-risk customers, negatively impacting satisfaction for the majority of their customers. "While servicers must be prepared to work within the confines of industry regulations, they must also effectively satisfy customers whose expectations regarding technology and personal service are rapidly changing," the survey said. "To meet these challenges and remain competitive, mortgage servicers need to understand and implement key best practices that have the greatest potential to reduce or prevent problems, contain costs, and create positive customer experiences that improve brand perceptions and minimize oversight risk." At-risk customers, those that J.D. Power defines currently behind in their mortgage payments or concerned about keeping current during the next year, represent only 15 percent o...

The hearing, titled " Dodd-Frank Five Years Later: Are We More Prosperous? ", included witnesses   Phil Gramm , Senior Partner with U.S. Policy Metrics and former U.S. Senator;   R. Bradley Miller , Of Counsel with Grais & Ellsworth and a former member of Congress; and   Peter Wallison , Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute. A recurring theme at the hearing was that Dodd-Frank represented overregulation which has stifled economic recovery rather than accelerated it as was intended. rank Act on American prosperity, freedom, and financial stability five years after the controversial law was enacted took place in the  House Financial Services Committee  on Tuesday. "By any measure we are today experiencing the weakest recovery of a post-war era," Gramm said. "Had this recovery simply matched the strength of the average of the other ten recoveries since World War II, 14.4 million more Americans would be w...

What Sun Tzu says about the cause of failure Here is the list of common fears from one survey in 1977 asked to 3000 Americans: The 14 Worst Human Fears :  1) Speaking before a group  2) Heights 3) Insects and bugs 4) Financial Problems 5) Deep water 6) Sickness 7) Death 8) Flying 9) Loneliness 10) Dogs 11) Driving/riding in a car 12) Darkness 13) Elevators 14) Escalators Failure is a part of life, the goal is to minimize those failures.    Justin Lee Thayer is Lane counties expert in market analysis for real estate investors. Call Justin @ 541-543-7287 CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE TEAM THAYER WEBSITE Sharing is caring use the social buttons below to share this post

While much has been written and said in the last two weeks on the fifth anniversary of the passing of Dodd-Frank into law,  HUD  is celebrating an anniversary of its own on Tuesday. July 28 marks exactly one year since former San Antonio mayor Julián Castro was sworn in as HUD secretary, succeeding Shaun Donovan. In addition to celebrating Castro's one-year anniversary as HUD secretary, HUD will commemorate the 50th anniversary of its founding on September 9. During his first year as the nation's top housing official, Castro has made several policy changes with the intent of increasing opportunity for more Americans to obtain affordable, sustainable housing. Several of those changes are outlined in an announcement from HUD on Monday titled " Year of Progress: Delivering on the Promise of Opportunity ." "We recognize housing as a platform for Americans who are striving to improve their lives and break the cycle of poverty for the next generation," H...

Add caption Fannie Mae  is now providing an enhanced single-family loan performance dataset in order to offer greater transparency in advance of the Enterprise moving to an actual loss framework for the Connecticut Avenue Series (CAS) risk sharing transactions,  according to an announcement  from Fannie Mae on Wednesday. Features of the enhanced dataset include information on credit performance up to, and including, property disposition. The credit information the new dataset provides includes event dates, the costs incurred by the credit event, and recovery proceeds that Fannie Mae receives. Fannie Mae estimates it could move to the actual loss framework  for the CAS transactions as soon as the fourth quarter this year. "Proactively providing this research data is an important step to prepare the market for our move to an actual loss structure for CAS deals later this year and supports market participants in further modeling the credit risk of Fannie Mae...

House prices inched up 0.4 percent in May, on a seasonally adjusted basis from the previous month, according to the  Federal Housing Finance Agency’s  monthly House Price Index. The previous month was revised up from 0.3 percent percent change in April to instead reflect a 0.4 percent change. Then index is based on home sales price information from mortgages sold to or guaranteed by  Fannie Mae  and  Freddie Mac . From May 2014 to May 2015, house prices were up 5.7 percent. For comparison, the U.S. index is 1.8 percent below its March 2007 peak and is roughly the same as the April 2006 index level.  For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly price changes from April 2015 to May 2015 ranged from -0.6 percent in the East South Central division to 1.1 percent in the East North Central division. In addition, the 12-month changes were all positive, ranging from +0.9 percent in the M...

Freddie Mac 's total mortgage portfolio expanded at an annualized rate of 2.8 percent in June, marking the fifth consecutive month and the 10th time in the last 12 months the portfolio has grown, according to  Freddie Mac's June 2015 Monthly Volume Summary  released on Wednesday. The serious delinquency rate on Freddie Mac-backed single-family residential mortgage loans fell by another 5 basis points from May to June, down to 1.53 percent–virtually the same as the 1.52 percent serious delinquency rate reported for Freddie Mac-guaranteed loans in November 2008 at the start of the financial crisis. Freddie Mac's serious delinquency rate was less than half of the nationwide rate reported by CoreLogic for May, which was 3.5 percent. The number of homeowners who received permanent loan modifications totaled 4,895 for June, a slight increase from 5,490 in May. With 30,312 modifications for the first half of 2015, Freddie Mac is averaging 5,052 modifications per month. Thi...

The  House Financial Services Committee  has announced that proposed legislation to cap the salaries of CEOs at  Fannie Mae  and  Freddie Mac has advanced to the markup phase, which will take place in the Committee on Tuesday, July 28. H.R. 2243, also known as the  Equity in Government Compensation Act of 2015 , was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-California) in May shortly after Federal Housing Finance Agency ( FHFA ) director Mel Watt  directed  the GSEs to submit a proposed executive compensation for the CEO position that could be as high as  $7.26 million a year , the 25th percentile of the market. Early in July, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced that their respective CEOs, Timothy Mayopoulos and Donald Layton, would receive a raise from their current annual salaries of $600,000 (the cap set by Watt's predecessor, Edward DeMarco) up to $4 million. The announcement of the substantial raise for the GSE's top ex...

Stronge r-than-expected economic activity for the second quarter will drive accelerated economic growth for the second half of 2015, according to the July 2015 Economic Outlook released Thursday by Fannie Mae 's  Economic & Strategic Research (ESR) Group . The U.S. economy  contracted at an annualized rate of 0.2 percent  in the third and final Q1 estimate from the  Bureau of Economic Analysis  released in late June. Improved conditions in Q2 were driven by increases in consumer spending and residential and nonresidential investments, combined with a waning drag from net exports, according to Fannie Mae. In the July Economic Outlook, Fannie Mae expects the economy to pick up to an annualized rate of 2.8 percent in Q2, which is 0.4 percentage points higher than the June estimate. Despite volatile economic conditions overseas that could pose headwinds to the U.S. economy, the ESR Group's estimate for full-year economic growth in July is an annualized ...

Tuesday, July 21, 2015 marks the fifth anniversary of the  Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act . As Dodd-Frank turns five, congress members and industry leaders examine just how effective the reform act has been within the government agencies to which it was applied. These agencies include: U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee,  delivered a speech today  at the  American Enterprise Institut e (AEI), discussing the where the U.S. stands with Dodd-Frank and what reforms need to be enacted for more economic growth. The Dodd-Frank Act was enacted by Congress in the wake of the financial crisis. Congress believed that the crisis was caused by insufficient ...