Yale Law School's Mortgage Foreclosure Litigation Clinic and the Connecticut Fair Housing Center (CFHC) have filed an Amicus Brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the respondents in a case to decide whether underwater homeowners in Chapter 7 bankruptcy can legally eliminate the liability on second mortgages, a process known as "stripping off," according to an announcement on Yale Law School's website.

The temporary factors that slowed economic growth include a drawdown in inventory, unusually high snowfall in some parts of the country, and the West Coast port slowdown. Fannie Mae expects the reducing of those factors in the second quarter combined with upbeat labor market conditions and positive consumer and business fundamentals to push GDP growth to 2.8 percent in 2015, ahead of 2014's pace of 2.4 percent.

Carrollton, Texas-based real estate solutions provider VRM Mortgage Services has announced that Tiffany Fletcher has been named SVP of compliance to manage risk mitigation, compliance, internal audits, quality assurance, and vendor management initiatives.

Foreclosure starts dropped by 15 percent month-over-month in February, down to 79,700, the lowest level since November 2014 and their third lowest total for any month in at least seven years, according to Black Knight. This decline in foreclosure starts came just one month after the number swelled to 94,300 in January, the highest level since December 2013. Analysts concluded at that time that the spike in foreclosure starts for January was likely due to seasonality and not a forming trend.

The new platform, known as RCT Express 4.2, includes comprehensive building and contents valuation estimates and can be integrated into an existing valuation, allowing for the inclusion of contents estimates in insurance providers' risk assessments, according to CoreLogic.

Better Markets, a non-profit Wall Street reforms advocate based in Washington, D.C., filed a suit against the DOJ in February 2014 alleging that the settlement Chase agreed to with the DOJ in November 2013 to settle claims that Chase sold toxic mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis, was "unlawful" and that the settlement had granted the megabank immunity without sufficient judicial review.

The letter was prompted by news reports that surfaced earlier this month stating that Citigroup, one of the servicers named in the settlement, had missed paying some 24,000 borrowers who were owed money from the settlement. Waters sent her letter on Friday to Fed Inspector General Mark Bialek and Treasury Inspector General Eric Thorson asking them to perform further examinations to see if other borrowers were missed.

Freddie Mac's conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), is requiring Freddie Mac and its fellow GSE, Fannie Mae, to reduce the number of non-performing residential loans in their portfolios. This will be Freddie Mac's third sale of nonperforming loans since last summer. In August, the Enterprise sold a bundle of NPLs totaling $596 million and one in February that covered $392 in UPB. Sales of NPLs by the two Enterprises generally include loans that are seriously delinquent, which are those that are 90 days or more past due.

Farmington Hills, Michigan-based title agency Best Homes Title Agency has hired Matt Evangelista as a commercial title examiner with the firm.

Servicers are now required to evaluate mortgage loans backed by the two GSEs and actively reach out to borrowers to offer a streamlined loan modification if the mortgage loan was previously modified to include a step-rate feature (which allows for a gradual rate increase in the first few years) and if the mortgage rate becomes 60 days delinquent in the first 12 months following a rate increase.