Home prices in Rhode Island plunged 25.8 percent in February from a year earlier, according to a report released Thursday by The Warren Group, a provider of real estate data for the New England area. February is the fourth consecutive month that prices have dropped by 20 percent or more, the company said.

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a U.S. district court has ordered two South New Jersey-based companies to stop falsely advertising that they are part of the mortgage assistance network, HOPE NOW Alliance, and that they successfully modify mortgages for almost all of their clients or else give refunds.

First American CoreLogic released its January 2009 home price data this week. Nationally, the company found that resale housing prices continued their descent, falling 11.6 percent compared to a year ago.

The First American Corporation announced on Tuesday that John Peace has been elected to the company’s board of directors. Peace serves as chairman of Experian plc, a global provider of information and analytical and marketing services to organizations and consumers.

The nation’s financial principals, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, testified before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, to rally congressional support for expanded regulatory authority – authority that would allow them to seize control of struggling financial institutions that are deemed too big to fail.

According to last week’s mortgage applications survey, published today by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), the number of applications for home loans jumped by nearly a third. The increase was spurred by a boost in refinance activity following the Federal Reserve’s announcement last week to more than double its purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) for the year, bringing the central bank’s total commitment to $1.

The Metro Tex Association of Realtors, DFWRealtors, reported a 23 percent increase in North Texas existing-home sales during the month of February compared to January of 2009. According to the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center and North Texas Real Estate Information Systems, in February, 5,126 houses were sold in Tarrant, Dallas, Denton, and Collin counties in North Texas.

Bank-owned property sales made up more than 10 percent of Massachusetts’ single-family home sales transactions in February, according to The Warren Group, a real estate data and research firm based in Boston.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said on Tuesday that it has increased its forecast of home loans in 2009 by over $800 billion. MBA now expects originations to total $2.78 trillion this year, which would make 2009 the fourth highest originations year on record, behind only 2002, 2003, and 2005.

David H. Stevens has been nominated by President Barack Obama for the position of assistant secretary for housing and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) commissioner, where he will be responsible for overseeing the government-led mortgage insurance agency.