Sales of new single-family homes rose 3.3 percent month-over-month in April 2012 and 9.9 percent year-over-year, according to a release issued by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. April saw new home sales at a seasonally adjusted rate of 343,000 units.

“Today’s report is representative of the kind of modest but consistent gains that we expect to see in new-home sales through the remainder of 2012,” said David Crowe, chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders, in a separate release. [more]

Following their conviction for defrauding elderly homeowners, three South Florida mortgage loan officers have been banned from government business by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Sun Sentinel reported. Each of the three, along with a Pittsburgh-based title agent, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. “HUD will not tolerate those who abuse the mortgage system and target elderly borrowers for their own personal gain,” said Shaun Donovan, HUD Secretary. [Sun Sentinel]

Redemptive Life Fellowship Church and its Bishop Harold Ray

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development wants West Palm Beach to fork over nearly $650,000 for failing to prove it used taxpayer funds to perserve low income housing, WPTV reported. The city requested federal funding to finance low income housing projects, but HUD said the money was not properly administered. [more]

By agreeing to take on a lawsuit against Detroit-based Quicken Loans, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on what constitutes illegal fees for mortgage lenders during the closing of a home sale, the Wall Street Journal said. It will clarify the interpretation of the 1974 Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act that prohibits mortgage lenders from receiving kickbacks or referral fees.

The Obama administration and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have interpreted the law as a clear order against lenders collecting unearned fees. But lower courts have ruled that the law doesn’t explicitly ban all unearned fees, rather it merely prohibits the payment or receipt of kickbacks. [more]

Bank of America should face fraud claims because its Countrywide unit submitted faulty data in claims for reimbursement of federally insured mortgages, according to an audit by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Bloomberg News reported.

“Countrywide did not properly verify, analyze, or support borrowers’ employment and income, source of funds to close, liabilities and credit information,” a HUD regional inspector general wrote in the audit. “This noncompliance occurred because Countrywide’s underwriters did not exercise due diligence in underwriting the loans.” HUD runs the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages on loans to borrowers who can’t find traditional financing, such as those with low income.  [more]

You probably know that federal law prohibits kickbacks among brokers and others in
residential real estate deals. That sounds pretty straightforward: You can’t give money
to someone simply for steering a homebuyer or refinancer to a particular title agency,
mortgage lender or escrow company without providing any actual services to the
consumer.

Yet as four recent legal settlements suggest, there is still plenty of action underway at the
fringes of the law, where technology and creative financial arrangements are raising new
questions about what’s permissible and what’s not.

Take the multimillion-dollar settlement July 11 between the Department of Housing and
Urban Development and Fidelity National Financial, the country’s highest-volume title
insurance and settlement services company. [more]

The settlement of a major class-action suit is shedding new light on a controversial real estate practice that homebuyers and sellers typically know little about: Fees paid to realty brokers and agents for promoting home warranty policies.

The case involves potentially thousands of homebuyers and sellers who purchased warranty coverage from American Home Shield between May 2008 and March of this year. American Home Shield is the dominant player in the home warranty field, with sales of $657 million in 2010, according to the company. Home warranty policies offer repairs and replacements for owners when specified home systems and appliances malfunction.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs say as many as 500,000 consumers may be members of the class, though neither they nor American Home Shield would speculate on how many ultimately will file for and receive cash from the settlement. [more]

The United States’ 1.2 million public housing units need an estimated $25.6 billion for large-scale repairs, according to a study released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “The new capital needs estimate far exceeds our annual budget for these repairs and illustrates why America needs a long-term strategy to address the loss of thousands of public housing units annually,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “Many of the nation’s public housing units are buckling under a severe backlog in capital needs.” The report focuses on improvements required to make the housing “decent and economically sustainable,” such as replacing roofs, updating plumbing or improving electrical systems to increase energy efficiency. — Alexander Britell

Should being pregnant and taking maternity leave ever constitute reasons to be turned down for a home mortgage or having your loan closing postponed?
You might think not, but two new legal actions by federal fair lending regulators suggest that the mortgage industry — and even federally run financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — may need to address the issue.
In one case, a Seattle-area physician settled a discrimination complaint with Cornerstone Mortgage Co., a national mortgage banking firm based in Houston. In the second, the Department of Housing and Urban Development accused MGIC, one of the country’s highest-volume mortgage insurers, of discrimination by underwriters against a Pennsylvania homeowner whose application allegedly was denied because she was on maternity leave. [more]

Sales of new single-family homes in March 2011 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 300,000, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

That is 11.1 percent above the revised February rate of 270,000, but is 21.9 percent below the March 2010 estimate of 384,000. The median sales price of new homes sold in March 2011 was $213,800; the average sales price was $246,800.

The seasonally adjusted estimate of new homes for sale at the end of March was 183,000. That represents a supply of 7.3 months at the current rate. TRD