The Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS) recently presented its 2008 Vision Award to attorney Denis Pierce, Pierce & Associates, and the Pierce Family Charitable Foundation of Chicago, Illinois.

Based on middle-ground assumptions, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) forecasts existing-home sales to total 4.96 million this year, and then increase to 5.19 million in 2009 and 5.55 million in 2010.

Liberty Capital Asset Management said yesterday that it has executed an agreement with an affiliate of New York-based asset manager Silar Advisors to invest up to $50 million to acquire defaulted subprime mortgage pools at a discount.

San Francisco-based Roost Inc. – a national real estate property search engine – announced yesterday that it has partnered with First American CoreLogic – a First American Corporation company and a provider of advanced property and ownership information, analytics and services – to add foreclosure listings from First American CoreLogic to Roost.

Fannie Mae announced a series of actions this week designed to help borrowers and loan servicers get an early jump on potential mortgage problems and prevent unnecessary home foreclosures among the more than 18 million single-family loans owned or guaranteed by the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE).

New data shows that more than half of the loans modified in the first quarter of 2008 became delinquent again within six months, Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan said at a national housing conference in Washington yesterday.

Birmingham, Alabama-based Regions Financial Corporation says that even in today’s challenging economy and housing market, its proactive home retention strategy has allowed the company to maintain a foreclosure rate of less than one percent for residential first mortgages.

New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine is calling for federal assistance to homeowners struggling to make their mortgage payments and facing the threat of foreclosure. Corzine said that a federal program needs to be implemented to address the housing crisis or the government risks driving the nation even deeper into recession.

IHS Global Insight, a company providing economic and financial analysis and forecasting, released a third-quarter update to its U.S. housing valuation analysis, House Prices in America:http://www.globalinsight.

Chicago has the ugliest house in America. That’s according to thousands of people who voted online at Theugliesthouse.com in HomeVestors’ Second Annual Ugliest House of the Year contest. DSNews.