REO

Freddie Mac reported Thursday that it lost $113 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. The loss, compounded by the company's $1.6 billion quarterly dividend payment to Treasury for bailout money, left the GSE with a net worth deficit again. Freddie's regulator is requesting another draw from Treasury, this time to the tune of $500 million. The company's fourth-quarter shortfall was actually the smallest of 2010 and brings the GSE's losses for the full year to $14 billion.

RealtyTrac has released its year-end 2010 foreclosure sales report, which shows that foreclosure homes accounted for nearly 26 percent of all U.S. residential sales last year, down from 29 percent of all sales in 2009 but up from 23 percent in 2008. The report also shows that the average sales price of these foreclosure properties was more than 28 percent below the average sales price of properties not in the foreclosure process - up from a 27 percent average discount in 2009 and 22 percent in 2008.

Stewart Lender Services, a nationwide provider of centralized origination, loss mitigation, and REO asset solutions for mortgage lenders and servicers, has announced three key partnerships that will allow the company to expand its service offerings. Stewart is collaborating with Inglet Blair, LLC, Spectrum Field Services, and Field Asset Services.

BrokerPriceOpinion.com, a California-based provider of customized valuation solutions, now provides a new online repair cost estimator with its broker price opinion (BPO) services. The tool, available as an add-on to the BPO, generates repair estimates for REOs, short sales, and other properties. It covers interior and exterior repair cost and maintenance estimates and complies with new GSE and interagency valuation requirements.

Oklahoma-headquartered a la mode, a developer of desktop, mobile, and Web tools for the real estate and mortgage industries, is expanding its Mercury Network vendor management platform (VMP) to offer broker price opinions (BPOs). Mercury Network is an online VMP, allowing lenders and appraisal management companies to manage appraisals nationwide.

They say ""it's all in the numbers,"" but what if the numbers don't match up, in fact don't even come close? The real estate data and analytics firm CoreLogic has released a market report in which the company claims 2010 home sales estimates from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) are overstated by 15 to 20 percent, or about 1.5 million homes. NAR says it's Corelogic's numbers that are off. Both parties agree that the issue lies in the methodology, compounded by the volatility and turbulence of today's market.

The percentage of distressed properties in home purchase transactions climbed to its highest level in nearly a year last month, according to an industry report released Tuesday. The distressed property index tracked as part of the report indicates that the share of sales transactions involving distressed homes climbed to 49.6 percent in January. Comments from real estate agents collected as part of the survey confirms the growing share of distressed properties, particularly in hard-hit markets.

LenderLive Network Inc. has expanded into private-labeled subservicing and specialty servicing. Through its expanded servicing division, LenderLive offers traditional subservicing of performing assets and end-to-end specialty servicing to help optimize the resolution of distressed assets. The company will continue to provide component servicing for loan modifications, short sales, and REO asset management. The company has tapped David Vida, a 20-year veteran of the mortgage industry to manage the loan servicing division.

Data released by Standard & Poor's Tuesday show that the S&P-Case-Shiller home price index declined by 3.9 percent quarter-over-quarter during the last three months of 2010. The closely watched gauge is down 4.1 percent versus the fourth quarter of 2009. The agency warns that home prices are edging dangerously close to cycle lows, and a full-fledged double dip. Home prices in 11 major markets hit their lowest levels in December since prices peaked in 2006 and 2007.

Mortgage Contracting Services LLC (MCS), a nationwide provider of property preservation, inspections, and REO property maintenance, reached a key company milestone Monday, celebrating 25 years in business. The company says it is particularly excited to achieve this mark of longevity because of the challenges it has overcome, weathering varying market cycles over the last quarter-century and adapting to extreme volume fluctuations and regulatory requirements.