The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Mortgage Applications Survey on Wednesday, for the week ending June 5, 2009. The association’s study shows that refinances, typically an effective tool for lowering distressed homeowners’ monthly payments, continued to fall last week – a trend that has prevailed for several weeks now.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, one of the federal watchdogs that oversees the government’s $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, says regulators’ stress tests of the nation’s 19 largest banks should be administered again using more severe economic assumptions, and should be conducted over a longer period.

Three Texas-based companies – REO Alternatives, Rapid Reporting Verification Company, and SigniaDocs – together with Maryland’s Overture Technologies unveiled plans on Tuesday to offer expedited electronic loan modifications through a collaborative initiative they’ve dubbed the eMortgage System Processing (ESP) program.

During the 65th anniversary D-Day festivities in Normandy, France on Friday, the city of Mont-Saint-Michel honored Robert M. Wilson Jr., a founding attorney of the real estate and mortgage default law firm Wilson & Associates, PLLC in Arkansas.

Daniel P. Culler has been appointed COO at Real Estate Disposition Corporation (REDC), an Irvine, California-based real estate auction company. In this position, Culler will oversee the company’s new commercial real estate division.

The Massachusetts Division of Banks issued 87 cease-and-desist orders against licensed mortgage lenders and brokers in the state last week. The regulator cited failure to provide required financial information, including failure to post a bond, as the reason for the closures.

Regulators have given 10 major financial institutions the green light to start repaying billions of dollars in federal bailout money. These banks were deemed by their regulatory supervisors on Tuesday to be strong enough to withdraw from what was formerly the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) but was renamed the Capital Purchase Program (CPP) under the Obama administration.

Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative recently sponsored the Third Annual Lenders One Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C., to give its mortgage banker members an audience with federal housing agencies and lawmakers.

After seeing millions of dollars in real estate lost by property owners at county-based tax sales last year, attorney Stephen M. Hladik, Esq. has formed the Real Estate Tax Sale Law Network, Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation.

Nationstar Mortgage LLC, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, has joined the list of mortgage companies officially under contract to provide federal loan modifications through the government’s Home Affordable Modification program.