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With so many single-family distressed homes out there on the market, real estate investors are aware of the need to choose carefully which homes to buy – and it's more than just the house itself that figures into the equation when buyers are making that determination.

If Pollard is correct, the impact on the U.S. economy would be seismic. Overvalued homes, according to his report to President Obama, make up $23 trillion of consumer asset value and "serve as the psychological linchpin" for $17 trillion of invested capital.

A California man was convicted on several counts of fraud relating to a mortgage scam earlier in the week, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) Christy Romero announced earlier this week.

With the mortgage industry becoming more heavily regulated in the last four to five years, those who work within the industry have had to place an increased emphasis on compliance. But compliance does not come without a steep price – it takes a great deal of time, effort, and money.

The process of eviction has become more heavily regulated in recent years right along with the rest of the housing industry, mainly by the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) of 2009.

More than two years after the central bank kick off its latest economic stimulus program, policymakers at the Federal Reserve once again voted this week to scale down monthly asset purchases—and hinted that the end is in sight.

That gain in younger household formations is expected to translate to $1.6 trillion spent on home purchases and $600 billion spent on rent in the next few years—more on a per-person basis than any other generation.

A panel of experts at the Servicing Lab at the Five Star Conference on Tuesday agreed that in order for loss mitigation to be effective in 2014 and heading into the future, servicers must find new and inventive ways to execute.

The national credit default rate, which includes bank cards, auto loans, and both first and second mortgages, edged up to 1.03 percent in August from July's historical low of 1.01 percent, according to data compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices and Experian. The monthly increase was fueled by a rise in first mortgage default rates, which were up to 0.91 percent from 0.88 percent the month prior, ending a nine-month declining streak.

Speaking on the subject of "Engaging Borrowers on Their Terms" at the Servicing Lab as part of the Five Star Conference on Tuesday, Green Tree Servicing's SVP of business control and client management, Mark Atencio, pointed out the many similarities between a mortgage and a marriage.