According to government officials, the economy contracted at an alarming 6.2 percent during the last quarter of 2008 — the worst showing in 26 years.
The Commerce Department released the revised gross domestic product (GDP) number on Friday, showing that the national economy deteriorated much faster than the 3.
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Sales of single-family homes and condominiums in Connecticut plummeted more than 35 percent in January from a year earlier, according to a report released this week by The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record and a provider of real estate data throughout the New England area.
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Jacksonville, Florida-based Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS), a provider of integrated technology and services to the mortgage industry, has announced that mortgage banking veteran Pete Maselli has joined the company’s Office of the Enterprise team as SVP of strategy and business development.
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Marix Servicing LLC, a national mortgage servicer based in Phoenix Arizona, recently released a new borrower outreach program aimed at helping mortgage servicers contact distressed borrowers at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure.
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The Treasury Department reached a deal late Thursday to increase its stake in Citigroup to an estimated 36 percent as part of a third bailout for the struggling bank. Already, the U.S. government holds an 8 percent ownership in the New York institution.
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Eight banking groups led by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) are calling for the government to throw out the new Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), claiming that changes to the regulation are needed to ensure mortgage disclosures truly benefit borrowers.
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South & Associates, P.C. has opened a full-service office in Omaha, Nebraska. The new office is fully operational and processing defaulted loans throughout the entire state.
Commenting on the firm’s expansion, Alan South, founder and managing partner of South & Associates, said, The transition to Nebraska was a logical business decision as the underlying infrastructure of the firm is 100 percent scalable and expandable to accommodate other jurisdictions and legal processes.
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During the 2008 session, our Congress wrestled with the challenges facing our economy and especially the seemingly out of control rate of mortgage defaults. Several pieces of legislation were bantered about and some even presented and passed.
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The Federal Reserve Bank of New York purchased $25 billion in agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) this week. Total MBS purchases since the government program began in early January now stands at $159.
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Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) for the week ending February 26, 2009, showing little change in mortgage rates this week with only slight upticks in three of the four categories of loan products analyzed.
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NeighborWorks Center for Foreclosure Solutions announced yesterday that it has received a donation in the amount of $50,000 from Smith Barney, a division of Citigroup Global Markets Inc. The contribution was awarded to help support foreclosure intervention and prevention strategies.
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Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS), a provider of integrated technology and services to the mortgage industry, has released its February 2009 LPS Mortgage Monitor. Among the findings, LPS reports that foreclosure starts have continued to increase across major product types over the past several months despite moratoria and mitigation.
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry addressed the board of directors of the Texas Association of Realtors during the organization’s annual Winter Meeting held in Austin this week. The meeting included discussions relating to the statewide real estate market and Texas economy, legislative issues affecting Texas homeowners, commercial real estate trends, and professional standards for Realtors.
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Parsippany, New Jersey-based RedVision recently reached a significant corporate milestone, completing its one millionth real property research transaction. The company also said it has now hired its 285th team member.
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Existing-home sales declined in January with some buyers waiting to see how details of the economic stimulus package would affect them, according to a new report released on Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
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The U.S. Treasury Department has released plans for its Capital Assistance Program (CAP), a core element of the government’s Financial Stability Plan. The Treasury issued terms and conditions for CAP on Wednesday, saying that the new program is intended to support confidence in the health of the nation’s financial institutions and in the system as a whole, and promote lending to creditworthy borrowers.
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The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 20, 2009.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, dropped 15.
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Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the $700 billion federal purse formerly known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), told congressional leaders on Tuesday that the government’s bank rescue efforts could be vulnerable to fraud, potentially stripping taxpayers of tens, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars.
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Aaron L. Squyres has been appointed partner at Wilson & Associates, PLLC. Squyres is the supervising attorney of the firm’s litigation division and has been a member of Wilson & Associates since 2003.
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An activist for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has been charged with fourth degree burglary for helping a Southeast Baltimore woman break into her former home last week as part of a protest demonstration against foreclosures.
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