California-based BigBidder.com, an online auction platform for mortgage notes, is marketing a $500,000 pool of re-performing residential mortgage loans. The auction of the mortgage pool began Thursday and is scheduled to end August 5.

The House Appropriations Committee has voted to extend the $729,750 limit for federal loans in high-cost markets through September 2010. The loan limit applies to mortgages financed through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and is currently set to revert back to $417,000 at the end of this year unless the extension is approved by Congress.

Freddie Mac has announced an agreement with Home Retention Services, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stewart Lender Services, Inc., to help regional servicers process thousands of backlogged applications for Making Home Affordable modifications.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum filed a lawsuit against four related South Florida mortgage companies this week. McCollum alleges that FHA All Day.Com and owner Jason Vitulano, as well as three other affiliated companies, charge up-front fees for loan modification services, purportedly collecting up to $1 million on a monthly basis.

Wisconsin-based Fiserv, Inc. has published a new analysis of home price trends based on the Fiserv Case-Shiller Home Price Index and data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). The company says the U.

Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Strategic Analytics Inc. , a provider of stress testing and forecasting solutions for retail lenders, announced Thursday a partnership with Maryland’s BlackBox Logic, LLC, a provider of loan-level mortgage data and cash flow analysis for securitized mortgage products.

Douglas Wilson Companies, a national problem resolution and real estate services firm, has opened a new office in Miami and appointed seasoned commercial real estate lending professional Terri Echarte as regional managing director to lead its South Florida operations.

Integrated Mortgage Solutions (IMS), a collateral protection resource for the mortgage servicing industry, has been named one of Houston’s Fastest Growing Woman-Owned Businesses by the Houston Business Journal for two years running.

Pomona, California-based PCV Murcor, a national real estate valuation company, has expanded its corporate staff with the addition of two financial services veterans. Nolan Turner has been named VP of business development at PCV Murcor.

A recent study published by the New York Federal Reserve says that lax lending standards were not the air that inflated the market’s latest housing bubble and propelled the nation into an economic tailspin.