Residential mortgage-backed securities investor Two Harbors Investment Corp. has announced the appointment of its controller Brad Farrell to the position of CFO and treasurer, effective January 1, 2012. After that time, Two Harbors' current CFO, Jeffrey Stolt, will continue to serve as partner and CFO of Pine River Capital Management L.P., the parent of PRCM Advisers LLC, Two Harbors' external manager.

Even with a seasonal uptick in the month of July, home prices are falling short of their levels a year earlier, according to data released Tuesday morning by Standard & Poor's. Both the 20-city and 10-city composite readings of the S&P/Case-Shiller index rose 0.9 percent between June and July, but were down 4.1 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively, when compared to July 2010. Washington, D.C. and Detroit were the only metropolitan areas to buck the annual trend.

The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) presented the 2011 NAHREP Founders' Awards to Armando Falcon and Shanna Smith for their efforts in advancing homeownership, particularly in the Hispanic community. Falcon served as director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's former regulator, from 1999 to 2005. He is now chairman and CEO of Falcon Capital Advisors. Smith is CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA).

Processing delays have taken their toll on first-time homebuyer interest in short sales, according to the latest HousingPulse Tracking Survey released Monday. First-time homebuyers were a part of 39.7 percent of the short sale transactions completed in August. That's the lowest percentage for this buyer segment ever recorded by the survey. The study found that the average time-on-market for short sales is 16.6 weeks, with the majority of that time spent waiting for approval.

The nation's foremost securities regulator is considering a civil injunction against Standard & Poor's (S&P) for its rating of a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) linked to high-risk mortgages. S&P's parent company told investors Monday it received notice that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may proceed with enforcement actions and monetary penalties. At the center of the investigation is a $1.6 billion CDO from 2007, which has been cited as an example of why the financial crisis ran so deep.

State and federal regulators stepped in to close the doors on two community-based lenders over the weekend - one in California and one in Virginia pushing this year's failed bank tally to 73. Citizens Bank of Northern California was acquired by Tri Counties Bank out of Chico, California. Bank of the Commonwealth in Norfolk, Virginia was the larger of the two closings. It was picked up by North Carolina's Southern Bank and Trust Company.

Merscorp, Inc., the parent company of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), has been managing the daily operations of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, Inc. (MISMO) for the last two-and-a-half years. But effective December 1, 2011, Merscorp will hand that responsibility back to MISMO's parent organization, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Mortgage lending has declined sharply in neighborhoods with high levels of foreclosures, according to the Federal Reserve. The U.S. central bank looked at what the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) identified as ""highly distressed"" census tracts. Based on information gathered under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HDMA), the Fed found that home-purchase lending in these highly distressed tracts was 75 percent lower in 2010 than it had been in these same tracts in 2005, and primarily reflects tighter credit for higher-income borrowers.

A year after evidence of robo-signing related to the processing of home foreclosures surfaced, state attorneys general don't seem to be any closer to a consensus on what should and shouldn't be included in the settlement. In fact, dissension among states' lead counsels is growing. Attorneys general from Kentucky and Minnesota have now joined the faction questioning the thoroughness of the investigation. Of particular concern is liability related to securitizations and the use of MERS.

Veros Real Estate Solutions and JVI Solutions LLC announced the launch of VeroINSIGHT this week. It&'s a comprehensive property condition report to address new regulatory guidance surrounding collateral evaluations. According to the two companies, VeroINSIGHT goes beyond existing collateral evaluation products by uniformly capturing aspects of the property's current condition, as well as its general marketability.