Data released by Lender Processing Services (LPS) Monday shows that foreclosure starts were up in August by 19.7 percent when compared to the previous month. However, overall foreclosure starts were down more than 12 percent from August of last year. At the same time, LPS says the number of loans in the 90-plus day delinquency bucket on which foreclosure has not been initiated has contracted to levels not seen since 2008, and the loan deterioration rate is less than half that seen in 2009.

CoreLogic has launched a supplemental consumer credit report to help lenders mitigate risk by uncovering additional debt obligations, as well as increase new lending opportunities by identifying previously hidden credit behavior that could improve a consumer's credit profile. CoreScore consumer information is merged with traditional credit data into a single, integrated report. The supplemental data is sourced from CoreLogic's proprietary databases, which include nearly 1 billion consumer transaction records.

A new quarterly survey of bank risk professionals from FICO paints a decidedly pessimistic picture of housing's future. The company describes its latest results as a reversal of the growing optimism seen in late 2010 and early 2011. The survey shows that bankers expect mortgage defaults and foreclosures to remain elevated for at least five more years, and housing prices nationally to hold below the pre-crisis levels of 2007 until the year 2020.

MISMO, the not-for-profit data standards subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), presented its Staff Appreciation Award to Leendert Bijnagte, business systems consultant at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. The award was presented to Bijnagte at the MISMO September Trimester Meeting in Broomfield, Colorado, for his outstanding commitment and service to MISMO.

The Texas Department of Banking and the FDIC seized control of First International Bank in Plano, Texas, over the weekend. The closing is expected to cost the FDIC's insurance fund $53.8 million and brings the agency's failed-bank tally to 74 for the 2011 calendar year. The FDIC brokered a deal with Houston, Texas' American First National Bank to take over the failed institution and purchase essentially all of its assets.

Mortgage servicer Residential Credit Solutions (RCS) stands out from the crowd in today's world of almost commonplace ratings downgrades and default servicing challenges. RCS has been awarded two upgrades from Fitch of its primary servicer rating for subprime products and its special servicing rating. Fitch said the rating actions reflect the company's 'high touch' servicing approach, competitive performance metrics, and effective default and foreclosure practices.

One in three Americans would be unable to make their mortgage or rent payment beyond one month if they lost their job, according to the results of a national survey taken in mid-September. Job loss has become the primary driver of mortgage defaults. With the state of the labor market posing one of the biggest obstacles for struggling homeowners and their lenders, a number of programs at both the national and state level have been launched to assist unemployed homeowners, but so far the expected results haven't materialized.

eMortgage Logic (EML), a national property valuations provider based out of Texas, is taking the guesswork out of determining the neighborhood for the subject property with the release of new proprietary interactive polygon mapping functionality. The company says the transparency provided through this new tool will enhance internal and external quality analysis and will provide clients with the confidence that comparables are not only similar in characteristics, but also in location.

MasterServ Financial, Inc., a new provider of portfolio monitoring, analysis, and management tools and services, has named veterans from the mortgage lending industry to its management team. Led by CEO and Big Four consulting veteran John Iatesta, the MasterServ Financial team is tasked with leveraging the company's technology resources and a customer list that includes the likes of HUD and Ginnie Mae to improve portfolio performance and asset quality for private sector financial services organizations and the GSEs.

Data released Thursday by a federal banking regulator provides a snapshot of mortgage performance over the second quarter of this year. Both early stage and serious delinquencies increased slightly compared to the previous three-month period, as did completed foreclosures, while new modification actions fell nearly 20 percent. Perhaps the most troubling result in the report is post-modification performance. Of loans modified since the beginning of 2008, nearly half have since gone delinquent.