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36 MARKET CONDITIONS MIXED IN FED'S LATEST BEIGE BOOK e Federal Reserve's Beige Book for February 2015, released early last month, said residential real estate conditions were mixed among the 12 districts. Home sales increased in Boston; Philadelphia; Richmond; St. Louis; Dallas, and San Francisco, but fell in Cleveland and Kansas City. Weather conditions slowed home construction in New York, Philadelphia, and Cleveland and caused Boston to have low levels of inventory. e report noted lack of desirable lots and low inventory levels continue to slow the market. Philadelphia, Boston, and New York all ex- perienced relative growth. All six New England states saw an increase in single-family home sales at the end of December 2014. In Massa- chusetts, December was only the second month, of the past six, with a year-over-year increase in home sales, while prices increased in 26 out of the last 27 months. e New York District's housing markets strengthened somewhat in early 2015. Rents across the rest of the District are up roughly 2 percent over the past year. Housing markets across the rest of New York state and New Jersey have mostly been sluggish, in part due to the inclement weather. Although home sales are increasing rapidly in Philadel- phia, growth is slower in the rest of the state. Residential real estate activity increased moderately in the Richmond, Virginia district. Realtors in Virginia and North Carolina re- ported increased sales, especially for higher end homes in North Carolina. Home sales increased in the St. Louis district on a year-over-year basis. Compared with the same period in 2013, December 2014 monthly home sales were up 5 percent in Louisville, 11 percent in Little Rock, and 29 percent in St. Louis. Home sales rose in Dallas, although reports on the pace of growth were mixed. Contacts in Dallas-Fort Worth noted a strong, earlier- than-normal pickup in traffic and sales, while demand in Houston held steady. Home prices continued to edge upward in this district. Home sales fell in Cleveland and Kansas City. Cleveland single-family home sales for all of 2014 were down slightly from last year, while the average sale price rose 4 percent. Kansas City residential sales decreased modestly, in part due to seasonal sales patterns and low inventory. Sale of low-, and medium- priced homes continued to outpace sales of higher- priced homes in the city. FREDDIE MAC ANNOUNCES FIRST SERIOUSLY DELINQUENT LOAN SALE OF 2015 In the first bulk sale of seriously delin- quent mortgage loans from its portfolio in 2015, Freddie Mac auctioned off 1,975 deeply delinquent, non-performing loans with an ag- gregate unpaid balance of approximately $392 million, the GSE announced. e loans sold in the auction were an average of three years delinquent on mort- gage payments, according to Freddie Mac, meaning the borrowers are all likely in some stage of mitigation—either loan modifica- tion, a foreclosure alternative such as a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure—or they are in foreclosure. Loans that were modified and later became delinquent made up about 24 percent of the aggregate pool, according to Freddie Mac. e loans were offered as three separate pools. e winning bidder for both Pool No. 1 and Pool No. 2 was Pretium Mortgage Credit Partners/Loan Acquisition, LP. e winning bidder on Pool No. 3 was Bayview Acquisi- tion, LLC. Pool No. 1 included 752 non-performing loans with an aggregate unpaid balance (UPB) of $136.2 million and a broker price opinion (BPO) loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 74 per- cent; Pool No. 2 included 468 non-performing loans with an aggregate UPB of $102.4 million and a BPO LTV of 100 percent; and Pool No. 3 included 755 non-performing loans with an aggregate UPB of $153.1 million and a BPO LTV of 135 percent. According to Freddie Mac, the average loan size on the aggregate of the three loan pools was $198,400, and the av- erage note rate was 5.39 percent. e aggregate weighted average LTV was 96.1 percent of the property value based on BPOs, according to Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac first announced the auction for these three pools of deeply delinquent loans on January 21, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, and e Wil- liams Capital Group acting as advisors for the transaction. e conservator for both Freddie Mac and its fellow GSE, Fannie Mae, is requiring the two enterprises to reduce the number of delinquent loans in their portfolios. Fannie Mae has yet to sell any of its delin- quent loans in bulk quantity; Freddie Mac sold its first bundle of delinquent loans for $659 million in July 2014. The number of non-foreclosure solutions offered to borrowers since 2007, including 1.88 million in 2014. Approximately 7.3 million of the solutions offered since 2007 were permanent loan modifications. Source: HOPE NOW STAT INSIGHT 23.2 million

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