Santa, Ana California-based First American Document Solutions, a member of the First American Corporation and a single point of access to a large land records database, recently announced that it has enhanced its online title policy and document retrieval capabilities.

Georgia-based Altisource Solutions, Inc. has broadened its mortgage service offerings to include REO asset management operations. This recent expansion extends the company's real estate disposition and closing services to include oversight and coordination of the entire REO transaction lifecycle.

Reversing a long historic trend, mortgage default risk for consumers with high FICO scores now exceeds their credit card default risk, Minneapolis-based FICO recently reported. The provider of analytics and decision management technology said this disturbing revelation creates unknown risk in lenders' credit portfolios, as well as counter-intuitive trends in consumer behavior.

For the first time in three weeks, interest rates for 30-year fixed mortgages averaged more than 5 percent, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. According to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the rate for 30-year fixed mortgages for the week ending February 25, 2010 averaged 5.05 percent with an average 0.7 point, inching up from last week when it averaged 4.93 percent.

In an effort to better market its foreclosed property listings, Lansdale, Pennsylvania-based Keystone Asset Management, a national provider of comprehensive REO, default management, and property valuation services, recently partnered with Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac, Inc.

In response to the overwhelming amount of foreclosures that could have been avoided through a short sale, Retreat Capital Management Group, a provider of loss mitigation and outsourced fulfillment solutions, and First Team National Default Solutions have formed a joint venture to manage the short sale segment of the loss management process.

In an effort to provide mortgage market participants with information critical to their success, Mortgage Industry Advisory Corporation (MIAC), a New York-based provider of FAS 157 fair market valuations, mortgage risk hedging, and accounting solutions, has launched phase I of its new corporate Web site.

Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, New York-based Trepp, LLC, an independent provider of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) and commercial mortgage information, confirmed Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Foresight Analytics, LLC, an Oakland, California-based provider of real estate market consulting services.

Although the median price for existing homes in California soared 15 percent from January 2009 to January 2010, the state's housing supply continued to decrease, according to a new report from the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.). The organization's unsold inventory index fell to 5.8 months in January, a notable drop from 7.3 months during the same month last year. Home sales declined on a month-to-month basis, but are holding steady at pre-peak levels from early in the last decade.

As a result of blizzard conditions and increasing interest rates, mortgage loan application volume fell 8.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending February 19, 2010, according to data released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).