Culver City, California-based ValuFinders Inc., a provider of valuation services to national lenders, brokers, and government agencies, announced at the MBA’s 95th Annual Convention and Expo this week that it has been selected by the U.

The Detroit Free Press has named two law firms specializing in default servicing to its Top Workplaces list for 2008. Farmington Hills-based Trott & Trott P.C. and Rochester Hills-based Potestivo & Associates P.

The PNC Financial Services Group Inc. announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire National City Corporation. PNC will pay $5.2 billion in stock for National City, or $2.23 per share, an 18.

The Mortgage Bankers Association:http://www.mbaa.org (MBA) released its economic forecast earlier this week. The association said it expects economic growth in the second half of 2008 to be negative and remain negative through the first half of 2009 before a modest recovery.

Marcy J. Ford, a partner with Farmington Hills, Michigan-based Trott & Trott, P.C., has been named USFN secretary, the non-profit network of law firms and trustee companies serving the mortgage industry announced this week.

Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) told lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday that banking regulators are working on a new program to help distressed homeowners escape foreclosure.

Home prices in the United States fell 0.6 percent from July to August, according to the monthly House Price Index released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today, bringing August 2008 figures to the same level as in September 2005.

RealtyTrac released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for September 2008 and Q3 2008 on Thursday, a timely disclosure considering lawmakers are sitting down with federal banking regulators on Capitol Hill today to discuss a national effort to help struggling homeowners and their lenders prevent foreclosure.

Clear Capital, a valuation company based in Truckee, California, introduced a new generation of indexing tools this week. The company’s multi-model approach provides granular, up-to-date contextual views of housing markets to help lenders and servicers perform the due diligence they need.

LenderLive Network Inc., a company that provides business process outsourcing and technology to the financial industry, has appointed Mitch Tanenbaum as SVP of technology, where he will be responsible for overall software development, data center operations, and information security.