Distressed

The government shutdown is not just affecting federal agency employees' ability to make their mortgage or rent payments, it could take them out of the home buying market, Zillow said.

As the government shutdown enters its third week, mortgage servicers are activating the response plans they normally use during hurricanes and wildfires to assist federal workers who may have trouble paying their mortgages.

Fannie Mae's overall single-family serious delinquency rate dropped another notch in November, according to its most recent report, but the current government shutdown raises questions about whether that trend will continue.

Home retention actions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through the first three quarters of 2018 already eclipsed 2016 and 2017 while forfeitures kept declining, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Weakening prices from the most expensive metro areas caused the first decline in available equity since the market started recovering from the housing crisis, according to Black Knight.

Foreclosure activity is down nationwide from a year ago, but certain local housing markets are telling a different story.

The performance of loans included in commercial mortgage-backed securities improved for the fifth consecutive quarter, with delinquencies down 179 basis points over the time frame, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

That old fixer-upper house down the block may have seen better days, but in an environment where new-home prices are on the rise, older homes remain in demand in many markets.

October's loan delinquencies, especially those in serious delinquency, got much healthier after improving from the fallout of the last two hurricane seasons, according to Black Knight.

A National Fair Housing Alliance-led group plans to amend and refile a recently dismissed complaint against Deutsche Bank, Ocwen Financial Corp. and Altisource Portfolio Solutions alleging racial discrimination in property preservation.

Over the last 20 years, at least 145,000 Detroit properties have been put up for sale in the annual Wayne County Tax Auction, and, of that number, an estimated 50,000 properties were occupied at the time of foreclosure.

The mortgage delinquency rate dipped to a 12-year low, but overvalued housing markets and eventual reversal in the unemployment rate present risk for future delinquencies, according to CoreLogic.

The city of Savannah, Ga., more than doubled the number of properties targeted with a blight tax this year in a continued attempt to reduce the amount of unsafe and unsightly structures throughout its neighborhoods.

Mortgage delinquencies inched up, in part from natural disasters hindering homeowner performance, but a stronger economy is still keeping defaults low, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Excellent credit quality and strong performance of post-housing-crisis originations resulted in a steep decline in foreclosure starts in September, according to Black Knight.

A low-rated segment of an index that most closely tracks the performance of U.S. mall mortgage loans saw its biggest decline in more than a year in October.

Goldman Sachs is getting closer to hitting its $1.8 billion consumer relief obligation as outlined in mortgage settlement agreements between the U.S. Department of Justice and three states.

Lennar Corp. is selling a portion of its Rialto business to Stone Point Capital for $340 million, adding to Stone Point's holdings in the real estate and financial industries.

Housing policies are helping the number of vacant foreclosure homes drop, which could also mean homebuyers have been taking advantage of these properties as inventory continues to be constrained, according to Attom Data Solutions.

A Queens, N.Y., man who helped defraud mortgage lending units at Bank of America, Chase Bank and AmTrust is now facing 21 months in prison and three years of supervised release.