Real estate lawyers Glen Rubin and Peter Lublin recently announced the founding of a special-purpose mortgage default law firm in Atlanta, Georgia – Rubin Lublin, LLC. Rubin and Lublin bring their combined 40 years’ experience to the new firm, concentrating on foreclosure and foreclosure prevention, bankruptcy, eviction, REO settlement, compliance, and all facets of real estate and title litigation.

The Hopp Law Firm recently announced its relocation and the opening of The Hopp Law Centre. The 45,000 square foot facility is centrally located in downtown Denver, across from the Denver Mint and the new Denver Justice Center, and adjacent to the Denver city and county offices.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported on Wednesday that U.S. home prices rose 0.7 percent from January to February, based on the purchase prices of homes owned or guaranteed by the GSEs. It’s the second month in a row that FHFA has recorded a national gain in residential real estate values.

Financial institutions face a number of regulatory changes in the coming months, some of the most notable of which are revisions to the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). Under the RESPA changes that take effect on January 1, 2010, HUD will require lenders to use a new Good Faith Estimate (GFE) and revised HUD settlement statement documents when underwriting a mortgage.

ProVest, a national process server management company for the mortgage default industry, announced on Monday the appointment of Les Zeiter as VP of operations for its Ohio office. In this position, Zeiter is responsible for maintaining customer relations with both current and potential clients and working with them to enhance efficiencies in service of process and loss mitigation initiatives.

Denver-based LenderLive Network Inc., a business process outsourcing and technology provider to the financial industry, has hired Paul Mooney as a national sales executive for LenderLive Settlement Services.

Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative, a national alliance of mortgage bankers headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, announced on Monday that it has renewed its contract with Fannie Mae as a preferred investor.

California’s median home prices dipped by less than half a percentage point in March, according to a report released last week by housing market researcher MDA Data Quick. The company also noted that prices were similarly steady in January and February, perhaps a signal that the Golden State’s tumultuous housing market is leveling off.

Ocwen Financial Corporation, a subprime mortgage servicer headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, was added to the government’s short list of mortgage companies under contract for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HMP) on Monday.

In testimony before the Congressional Oversight Committee on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers that the vast majority of U.S. banks have more capital than they need. Geithner’s remarks provided investors with a hopeful preview of the bank stress test results, and led to the largest stock gain in almost two weeks on Tuesday, following a rally among financial shares.