Research

LodeStar has released its Year-Over-Year Mortgage Closing Cost Report covering 2024 versus 2025. The report analyzes distinct mortgage quotes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.), drawn from the company’s closing cost calculator platform. Nationally, purchase loan closing costs declined by 2.9%, driven largely by falling home prices, which reduced transfer tax burdens across many markets. In total, 28 states saw closing costs decrease, while 23 states experienced increases.

Ncontracts released findings from its 2025 Third-Party Risk Management Survey, revealing the biggest trends, risks, and strategies shaping third-party risk management (TPRM).

ATTOM released its second-quarter 2024 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report showing that 1.3 million (1,289,387) residential properties in the United States sit vacant. That figure represents about 1.3 percent, or one in 79 homes, across the nation – the same as in the first quarter of this year.

ATTOM released its 2023 property tax analysis for 89.4 million U.S. single family homes, which shows that $363.3 billion in property taxes were levied on single-family homes in 2023, up 6.9 percent from $339.8 billion in 2022. The increase was almost double the 3.6 percent growth rate in 2022 – and the largest in the past five years.

The Mortgage Collaborative (TMC), an independent cooperative network serving the mortgage industry, announced the completion of its “Pulse of the Network” survey for 2024. The full report features lenders’ top five critical issues for the year, top 10 goals and anticipated strategies for success. Select findings from this year’s report are as follows:

“The new year kicked off with continued rate relief and a 36% month-over-month gain in total lock volume, driven by a seasonal 38% increase in purchase lock volume,” said Brennan O’Connell, director of data solutions, Optimal Blue. “We also saw the smallest year-over-year decline in purchase lock counts since May 2022, which may foreshadow a stabilizing market and friendlier lending environment in 2024.”

Mortgage credit availability increased in January according to the Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI), a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) that analyzes data from ICE Mortgage Technology.

Findings from the newly released Q4 2023 Quarterly Credit Industry Insights Report (CIIR) from TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) reveal that credit card debt is at a historical high, driven in part by Millennials further building on their credit portfolios. This comes at a time when an anticipated reduction in interest rates over the course of the coming year may open up new avenues to more affordable credit.

Mortgage applications decreased 7.2 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending January 26, 2024. Last week’s results included an adjustment to account for the MLK holiday.

S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) released the latest results for the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices. Data released for November 2023 show that 12 out of the 20 major metro markets reported month-over-month price decreases.