The CoreLogic Home Price Index and HPI Forecast for December 2018 reported home prices rose on a year-over-year and month-over-month basis.

Home prices increased nationally by 4.7 percent year over year from December 2017. On a month-over-month basis, prices increased by 0.1 percent in December 2018.

Looking ahead, the CoreLogic HPI Forecast indicates home prices will increase by 4.6 percent on a year-over-year basis from December 2018 to December 2019. Comparing the annual average HPI and HPI forecast for 2018 and 2019, average price growth is forecasted to slow from 5.8 percent to 3.4 percent.

On a month-over-month basis, home prices are expected to decrease by 1 percent from December 2018 to January 2019. The CoreLogic HPI Forecast is a projection of home prices calculated using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state.

“Higher mortgage rates slowed home sales and price growth during the second half of 2018,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Annual price growth peaked in March and averaged 6.4 percent during the first six months of the year. In the second half of 2018, growth moderated to 5.2 percent. For 2019, we are forecasting an average annual price growth of 3.4 percent.”

Black Knight has launched the Rapid Analytics Platform, an interactive virtual analytics lab where users can source and upload data, execute queries, perform complex analytics and train machine-learning models, from a single workspace.

A cloud-based platform for working with big data, RAP features a unique, advanced workspace environment offering a dynamic mix of traditional analytics, machine learning and neural networks that help users create data-driven solutions and actionable analytic outputs.

RAP provides users with access to all of Black Knight’s diverse, comprehensive data assets, advanced analytics and pre-built queries and analytic models, while also allowing them to easily join their own data to tailor queries and models to support specific use cases.

RAP’s real-time, high-speed processing delivers instant results, enabling mortgage and capital markets professionals to work with complex data sets and advanced analytics.

Users have access to nationwide assessor data, recorder data and real-estate property and sales data;   loan-level and historical mortgage data; automated valuation models; and home price indices. RAP has a vast analytics library that enables users to solve many challenges specific to the mortgage, real estate and capital markets industries.

The technology “was designed for the mortgage and capital markets industries and can be used out of the box, on day one, to support virtually endless possibilities,” said Anthony Jabbour, Black Knight’s CEO. It was designed with “computational power an order of magnitude greater than what most firms have in-house, and enables data scientists and analysts to deliver faster insights and help their companies enhance performance, identify new revenue opportunities, increase efficiencies, and reduce risk.”

“As a big-data incubator, there is simply nothing else like RAP on the market, particularly for those who focus on housing-related assets,  whether it’s the mortgage industry, capital markets, or any of the fields adjacent to those,” said Ben Graboske, president of the data and analytics department of Black Knight. “The speed with which analysts and data scientists can now explore multiple scenarios, see results, change parameters and run whole scenarios again is unparalleled.”

Mortgage applications decreased 2.5 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending Feb. 1, 2019. The previous week’s results included an adjustment for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 12 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index increased 0.3 from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 5 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 13 percent compared with the previous week and was 2 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

“Mortgage rates for all loan types declined last week, with the 30-year fixed mortgage rate falling seven basis points to 4.69 percent, the lowest rate since April 2018,” said Joel Kan, associate vice president of industry surveys and forecasts. “Despite more favorable borrowing costs, and after a three-week surge in activity, purchase applications have slowed over the past two weeks, and are now almost two percent lower than a year ago. However, moderating price gains and the strong job market, including evidence of faster wage growth, should help purchase growth going forward.”

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 41.6 percent of total applications from 42.0 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage share of activity decreased to 7.8 percent of total applications.

The FHA share of total applications remained unchanged from 10.5 percent the week prior. The Veterans Affairs share of total applications decreased to 10.0 percent from 10.7 percent the week prior. The Department of Agriculture share of total applications increased to 0.5 percent from 0.4 percent the week prior.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($484,350 or less) decreased to 4.69 percent from 4.76 percent, with points decreasing to 0.45 from 0.47 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio  loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with jumbo loan balances (greater than $484,350) decreased to 4.50 percent from 4.60 percent, with points increasing to 0.28 from 0.24 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages backed by the FHA decreased to 4.70 percent from 4.77 percent, with points decreasing to 0.57 from 0.58 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.11 percent from 4.16 percent, with points increasing to 0.47 from 0.46 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

The average contract interest rate for 5/1 ARMs decreased to 4.04 percent from 4.14 percent, with points remaining unchanged from 0.37 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.

Consolidated Analytics has acquired Carrington Property Services, bringing the company a step closer to offering a one-stop services solution to clients. The acquisition, which was finalized Feb. 1, 2019.

Consolidated Analytics is adding REO asset management, rental management and valuation services for non-performing borrowers to a product line that includes property valuation, loan due diligence, mortgage fulfillment and advisory services to the real-estate finance industry.

"Mortgage industry participants are looking for a streamlined, scalable, and centralized way to effectively evaluate and manage their real estate assets," said Arvin Wijay, CEO of Consolidated Analytics. "The acquisition of [Carrington Property] boosts our infrastructure, resources, technology, and support functions, which will improve productivity and accelerate returns at every aspect of the asset management lifecycle."

In recent years, Consolidated Analytics has enhanced its mortgage-services platform by expanding its internal operations, technology and servicing capabilities. Also, through strategic acquisitions in Equitable Mortgage Solutions, a mortgage fulfillment provider, and OpEXNow, a leading mortgage operations advisory firm.

Affiliates of Eos Partners and Seal Rock Partners financed the acquisition of CPS. Eos is an alternative investment firm that actively invests in the private equity, credit and public equity markets. Seal Rock is the family-backed private equity investment affiliate of Jonathan and Edward Cohen that acquires and builds businesses with equity investments in growth companies of $10 to $50 million.

"By re-investing in our business, we can offer our clients more value, improved execution, and a better customer experience," said Rudy Zabran, chief revenue officer at Consolidated Analytics. "We have carefully planned out our growth path to ensure our clients stand to gain the most."