The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) announced the closing of U.S. Central Bridge Corporate Federal Credit Union (U.S. Central Bridge). The closing comes after three years of efforts to stabilize the corporate credit union sector, the agency stated in a release Monday.
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Hammerhouse LLC announced it has expanded its Eastern U.S. headquarters brought on additional staff to order to meet the increased demands of its growing client base. Hammerhouse has doubled the size of its office in Hickory, North Carolina.
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Keystone Asset Management Inc. is fully operational again after a power outage from Superstorm Sandy. The Colmar, Pennsylvania-based company said its IT personnel monitored the situation and were aware of the power outage as soon as it occurred.
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HUD secretary Shaun Donovan announced the department is working to speed up federal disaster assistance to areas in New York and New Jersey following the passage of the storm. HUD is also granting a 90-day forbearance on foreclosures of home mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
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RedVision hired Amy Holder to join the company as market development director for the Eastern United States.
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The inventory of new homes for sale has fallen dramatically since 2008 to 4.5 months, closing in on its lowest level in 50 years, according to the most recent Home Value Forecast report. "In recent years, new housing supply has been running at the lowest levels since the 1960's due to the slow down in new home construction, the size of homes being built, and the complicated process for selling/buying distressed properties," said Pro Teck Valuations CEO Tom O'Grady.
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Vericrest Financial, Inc. sent a letter to customers impacted by Hurricane Sandy, notifying them of support available.
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac servicers will be able to skip a step when attempting to get a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure approved. On Wednesday, the GSEs announced standard delegation agreements were reached with nine mortgage insurers to allow servicers to approve of short sales and deeds-in-lieu without a separate review process with the mortgage insurer. The agreement takes effect November 1, along with additional short sale guidelines the GSEs announced in August.
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Completed foreclosures continued their descent into September, falling 31 percent from a year ago, according to data from CoreLogic. The analytics company reported the number of homes lost to foreclosure in September dropped to 57,000. The decline is a steep drop from 83,000 in September 2011, and a decrease from the upwardly revised 59,000 in August. Before the housing crises, completed foreclosures were much lower than the sinking figures reported recently. Between 2000 and 2006, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month.
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Recently, Dave Liniger, co-founder and chairman of RE/MAX, LLC, had some choice words for the presidential candidates regarding their stances--or lack thereof--on the nation's housing crisis. In an open letter addressing both President Obama and Governor Romney, Liniger calls out the two candidates for avoiding the issue when it comes to the current state of affairs in American housing. "As leaders, you ignore housing at our peril," he says, highlighting four obstacles he sees as blocking recovery for housing, and ultimately the economy.
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With the housing market's collapse, many lenders have found themselves loaded down with a plethora of foreclosed real estate holdings, and they've been hesitant to overstep the delicate tenets of supply and demand for fear that such a step would further reduce property values. This "retreat" from the market resulted in a surplus of "shadow inventory." Many industry experts are predicting that, regardless of which candidate is chosen, the shadow inventory will begin to make its way onto the market once the presidential election is decided.
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Equifax announced the launch of its Spectrum Verification Services Platform designed to strengthen lender confidence by streamlining the verification processes through underwriting, QA, and closing.
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Wells Fargo has issued thousands of refund checks to home loan customers who paid unnecessary mortgage fees, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times. According to the newspaper, Wells Fargo sent out refunds to as many as 10,000 customers along with letters explaining that they had paid too much.
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Apparently, if one loses his or her home to foreclosure, the waiting period to qualify for another mortgage can easily be another decade. According to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, a mere 10 percent of borrowers with a history showing a serious delinquency were able to obtain a mortgage again within 10 years. For borrowers who end their mortgage for a reason other than default, they were able to access mortgage credit about two-and-a-half times faster than those who went into default.
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Homeowners with mortgages guaranteed by Freddie Mac may be eligible for payment relief if they are located in an area that has been devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
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Roy Sexton, VP of marketing and strategic planning for Trott, was elected to the Michigan Mortgage Lenders Association's (MMLA) board of governors. Sexton will serve a two-year term for the southeast chapter of the organization.
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The number of households owning homes rose to 75,076,000 in the third quarter from 74,832,000 in the second, but down from 75,251,000 a year ago, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. At the same time, the nation's homeownership rate (seasonally adjusted) remained at 65.5 percent. The homeownership rate stayed near historic lows. The rate in the first quarter was 65.4 percent, the lowest since the first quarter of 1997.
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The Omaha branch of Gateway Mortgage Group has hit record loan volumes each month, making it one of the leading branches among the company's network.
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Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS) reached a settlement with Colorado Attorney General John Suthers for $1.8 million over former document execution practices by LPS subsidiaries, DocX, LLC and LPS Default Solutions.
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U.S. home prices continued to increase in August as the Case Shiller 20-city Home Price Index increased 0.9 percent to its highest level since September 2010. The 20-city index is up 2.0 percent in the last year. The 10-city also rose 0.9 percent in August, increasing to 158.62, 1.3 percent ahead of August 2011 and the highest level since October 2010. The monthly gain in each index was slower than in July, when the 10-city index went up 1.5 percent and the 20-city index improved 1.6 percent. July also saw gains in all 20 index cities.
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