Titanium Holdings, Inc. today announced the addition of Tamara Buie and Michael Radesky to its management team. Titanium Holdings, Inc. is the parent company of Titanium Solutions, Inc., a provider of homeowner contacting and consulting services.

Wilmington, Delaware-based ING DIRECT, a national direct bank, announced today that effective immediately, it will suspend foreclosure sales on occupied single-family properties through the end of March 2009.

Loan modifications have taken center stage lately, as federal regulators and lawmakers continue to push for a homeowner bailout plan to accompany the Wall Street rescue package, and major lenders themselves are stepping up to the plate to try and improve home retention for troubled borrowers.

The federal government agreed Sunday night to step in and rescue Citigroup Inc. As part of the last-minute deal, the U.S. government agreed to backstop up to $306 billion of Citi’s toxic assets, including underwater mortgages, and inject a fresh $20 billion into the struggling bank.

As President-elect Barack Obama unveiled his economic team at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois on Monday, he said there was not a minute to waste in rebuilding the U.S. economy. Obama announced that he is nominating New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner to be the new treasury secretary, replacing Henry Paulson.

New Jersey’s Society for the Preservation of Continued Homeownership (SPOCH), a non-profit group which facilitates favorable mortgage loan workouts, has selected Walnut Creek, California-based National Loan Auditors (NLA) to administer forensic loan audits.

An estimated 42,293 houses and condos – including both existing and new – were sold in California last month, according to the latest report from research firm MDA DataQuick. That figure is up 4.

Sales of existing single-family homes in Florida rose 5 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest housing statistics from the Florida Association of Realtors (FAR).

First American Title Insurance Company yesterday announced that Alan K. McCall has been elected president of the Florida Land Title Association (FLTA) for the 2008/2009 term. A 34-year veteran of the title insurance industry, McCall currently serves as VP and southeast regional underwriting counsel for First American.

As U.S. financial organizations plot their course for 2009, many are waiting to see how the federal government will handle the current financial crisis under a new presidential administration. Successful organizations will be those that are not only able to adjust to a changing regulatory landscape, but ones that can also demonstrate they are embracing the letter and the spirit of the law, according to experts at Minneapolis-based Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, a provider of compliance and operational risk management solutions to financial organizations.