The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced Thursday that the maximum conforming loan limits for mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2013 will remain at existing levels. In most of the country, the loan limit will be $417,000 for one-unit properties, but that ceiling goes as high as $625,500 in certain high-cost markets.

Dawn O'Connor has just joined Energy REO Solutions as the company's president. In this role, she will manage and lead all operations from the company's headquarters in Minnesota. A 30-year veteran of the mortgage banking industry, O'Connor was previously VP of default operations for Nationstar Mortgage.

The value of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) may be changing, and the market for acquiring MSRs may be heating up. This market phenomenon is the result of the proposed Basel III capital rules applicable to banks. For non-banks, the Basel III rules may seem irrelevant, but that could be a mistake. The Basel III rules could change how MSRs are priced, who owns the MSRs, and ultimately which servicers handle servicing for the loans that relate to the MSRs.

LOGS Network, a consortium of default-related firms providing legal and outsourcing solutions for the residential mortgage and consumer credit industries, has added Janeway Law Firm, PC, to its network. Serving the entire state of Colorado, the newest member of LOGS is a full-service law firm and a member of the Fannie Mae retained attorney network.

PCV Murcor is unveiling its newest valuation tool to mortgage industry professionals this week at the Mortgage Bankers Association's 99th Annual Convention in Chicago. It's called Rental Broker Price Opinion (BPO)--a tiered offering that includes a BPO, automated rent estimate (ARE), and an optional reconciled broker opinion of the ARE.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) is stepping up and speaking out in defense of JPMorgan Chase, calling the U.S. government's lawsuit against the financial institution a case of ""no good deed goes unpunished."" New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a suit against JPMorgan on October 1 for the alleged misconduct of Bear Stearns & Co. prior to JPMorgan's acquisition of the failing investment bank, and Frank says he has first-hand knowledge that federal officials urged JPMorgan to ""do a good deed"" by taking over an institution which JPMorgan would never have sought to acquire absent that urging.

Home prices reached a sustainable bottom during the first quarter of this year, according to Barclays' U.S. residential credit strategy team. In many markets, longer-term affordability measures point to equilibrium, the firm's analysts contend. While the floor appears to have materialized, they stress that home prices are likely to recover slowly over the next 4 to 5 years, increasing on average 3 to 4 percent annually. At that rate, Barclays' analysts explained, home prices will remain below their 2006 pre-crisis peaks until June 2021.

Less than half of the states' $2.5 billion from the national mortgage servicing settlement is being used for housing initiatives as intended, according to Enterprise Community Partners. It's been six months since a federal judge approved the agreement between the nation's five largest mortgage servicers and state and federal officials, and Enterprise says to date, states have announced housing- and foreclosure-related plans for $966 million of their settlement share; $988 million has been diverted to states' general funds or non-housing uses; and $588 million has yet to be allocated.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has issued the first borrower payments resulting from settlements with the nation's five largest mortgage servicers over faulty foreclosure processing. Oklahoma families who were subject to the servicers' ""unfair and deceptive practices ... following the financial crisis,"" can expect to receive their checks soon, Pruitt said. Oklahoma was the only state to craft its own agreement with Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, GMAC/Ally, and Wells Fargo.

Nearly 99,000 homeowners refinanced their mortgages in August through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said Tuesday. Since the beginning of this year, when a broader group of borrowers were made eligible for the program, the federal government's HARP initiative has put 618,217 homeowners with loans owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac into new mortgages with lower interest rates. According to FHFA, HARP is on target to reach a million borrowers in 2012.