Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) introduced new legislation on Monday that he says will better protect homeowners from the recent wave of housing scams spreading throughout the country. The bill would provide local prosecutors with federal funding to beef up their anti-fraud efforts.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Pro-Teck Valuation Services announced Monday that its home mortgage appraisal services are fully compliant with the new Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), which takes effect May 1.

HOPE NOW’s ‘Bringing Hope Home’ bus tour made its way to Atlanta on Saturday, the second stop in a four-city journey to raise awareness about the foreclosure problems facing families in local communities and direct struggling homeowners to the resources available in their area that can help them avoid losing their homes.

Great Basin Bank of Nevada, located in Elko, Nevada, and American Sterling Bank in Sugar Creek, Missouri, were shut down by regulators on Friday. These are the latest two community institutions to fold under the pressures of the nation’s fraught economy, and they bring the total number of 2009 bank failures to 25.

President Barack Obama announced his formal nomination of Fannie Mae’s chief executive Herb Allison to run the Treasury’s $700 billion bank rescue program on Friday. The official presidential nod was widely expected, although the nomination still requires confirmation from the Senate before Allison can take up his post in the Treasury office.

Walnut Creek, California-based PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. has made its secure online mortgage insurance ordering system available to all lenders. Previously, only lenders with delegated authority to underwrite the mortgage insurance themselves benefited from the electronic ordering process.

Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac modified nearly 24,000 loans during the fourth quarter of 2008, an increase of 76 percent over the third quarter, according to data released this week by the GSEs’ regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

Minneapolis-based Wolters Kluwer Financial Services announced on Thursday that it has enhanced the company’s suite of mortgage compliance documentation solutions to help financial institutions participate in the Treasury Department’s new Making Home Affordable program.

Coraopolis, Pennsylvania-based ServiceLink, a provider of origination and default services and the national mortgage services platform of Fidelity National Financial, has launched their Appraiser Panel Management (APM) product line.

Lenders took back 7,300 foreclosed properties in the tri-county South Florida area during the first quarter of the year – representing a 54 percent increase over the same period in 2008 – according to a new report from Condo Vultures LLC, which provides residential real estate data for some of the markets hardest hit by the housing crisis, including South Florida, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Diego.