Mortgage defaults

Defaults on second-lien mortgages have crept up on a year-to-year and a consecutive-month basis; and first-lien defaults are above where they were the previous month, but still below year-ago levels.

The mortgage delinquency rate reached its lowest point in nearly a decade in May due to tighter underwriting, according to CoreLogic.

Essent Group reported second-quarter net income of $72.1 million, an improvement from the $52.3 million of the same period last year.

Genworth Financial's U.S. private mortgage insurance business had an almost 50% increase in adjusted operating income, benefiting from lower-than-expected claim rates.

Old Republic International Corp. is again making noise about bringing its mortgage insurance subsidiary back to active status, while separating it out from the holding company.

Three California men who previously operated Star Reliable Mortgage were ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution and are facing multiyear prison terms related to a foreclosure rescue scheme.

Arch Capital Group's mortgage insurance business had second-quarter underwriting income of $184 million, up 343% from the $41.4 million for the same period last year.

A former California mortgage lender agreed to pay $4.2 million to settle civil fraud allegations that its lending practices in the Southeast caused taxpayers to lose millions of dollars when homeowners defaulted on their loans after the Great Recession.

First-lien mortgage defaults in June were down 4 basis points from the previous month and 5 basis points from where they were the previous year at 0.6%.

Canadians may be shouldering near-record household debt but homeowners have been managing it better than those that don't own property.