California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a bill appended to the state’s budget package last week that institutes a 90-day foreclosure moratorium throughout the Golden State. Introduced by Sen.

An activist for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has been charged with fourth degree burglary for helping a Southeast Baltimore woman break into her former home last week as part of a protest demonstration against foreclosures.

Aaron L. Squyres has been appointed partner at Wilson & Associates, PLLC. Squyres is the supervising attorney of the firm’s litigation division and has been a member of Wilson & Associates since 2003.

Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the $700 billion federal purse formerly known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), told congressional leaders on Tuesday that the government’s bank rescue efforts could be vulnerable to fraud, potentially stripping taxpayers of tens, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 20, 2009. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, dropped 15.

With mortgage interest rates hitting historic lows, the refinance boom has put pressure on an industry that is already struggling from slashed jobs, plummeting real estate values, and fewer people buying new homes, forcing mortgage companies to do more with less.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke dispelled rumors about nationalizing the U.S. banking system when he testified before congressional leaders on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Bernanke said nationalization of major financial institutions isn’t needed to ensure their viability, and could even erode their business value.

RealtyTrac, a national online marketplace for foreclosure properties based in Irvine, California, and Caspio, Inc., a provider of a Web-based point-and-click platform for creating Web applications, today announced the launch of a new foreclosure Web application that features historical foreclosure activity data by state or by county and a real-time nationwide search of properties in foreclosure.

Mortgage Contracting Services (MCS), a provider of property preservation and inspection services to the mortgage industry, has named Michele Struckman as AVP of the company’s Tampa operations and Tracy Hager to VP of its Dallas operations.

Minneapolis-based Wolters Kluwer Financial Services recently announced that two members of its compliance management services team have earned the prestigious Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM) designation from the American Bankers Association’s (ABA’s) Institute of Certified Bankers (ICB).