The Texas-based trade association Women in Default Services (WinDS) will hold their 2nd Annual Networking Event at the Women's Museum in Dallas, Texas on September 12. As part of the event, the organization will this year honor Sharon Bartlett of Freddie Mac and Cheryl Travis-Crawford of Vendor Resource Management (VRM) for outstanding achievements in their industry.

The Hopp Law Firm, LLC, a national provider of commercial and creditor legal services, recently announced that Forrest R. Goodrum has joined its Idaho legal team as a partner. Goodrum joins the firm with over 40 years of litigation, appellate litigation, creditor bankruptcy, and real estate law experience. In his work, Goodrum has handled a wide range of regulatory and compliance matters related to creditor's rights, real estate, mortgage banking, mortgage servicing, foreclosures, and litigation.

The warm weather homebuying season has kept prices moving up, but Clear Capital says the rate of appreciation is already slowing and weak consumer confidence points to a stormy rest of the year. The company's latest report shows that home prices rose 4 percent over the four-month period ending in August when compared to the previous three months. But Clear Capital notes the recent gains have not been enough to recoup longer-term declines, with national home prices still more than 6 percent below last year's levels.

Commerce Velocity, a member of the Fidelity National Financial family of companies, has enhanced its Optimizer solution to help achieve the new requirements for the Quality Right Party Contact (QRPC) standard outlined by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as part of the GSEs' servicing alignment initiative. The new enhancements are designed to arm servicers with technology to document communication to the borrower regarding the resolution of their delinquent mortgage, as required by QRPC.

For the first time in over a year neither Fannie Mae nor Freddie Mac are showing any downward movement in their seriously delinquent mortgage rates. Fannie's percentage of single-family loans at least three payments past due remained unchanged between the months of June and July at 4.08 percent. Freddie's increased one basis point to 3.51 percent. The Federal Housing Finance Agency says foreclosure prevention actions completed on loans held by the two mortgage financiers have declined for four consecutive quarters.

The REO For Non Profit Mastermind Group, a real estate collective of professional REO agents, and the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) will co-host a V.I.P. charity event on Saturday, September 17th at the ICON Ultra Lounge in downtown Los Angeles to benefit two high-profile agencies working to assist struggling homeowners facing foreclosure.

Richard Cordray has been hand-picked by President Obama to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). On Wednesday, Cordray stood before the U.S. Senate to make a case for lawmakers' confirmation of his appointment. On the heels of major lawsuits announced by the government related to mortgage bonds, Cordray told senators that regulatory authority is his weapon of choice as opposed to litigation, which can be ""a very slow, wasteful, and needlessly acrimonious way to resolve a problem.""

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's decision to pursue legal action against firms that sold residential mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could potentially strain relationships between the GSEs and the companies named as defendants, many of whom still sell mortgages to Fannie and Freddie and service home loans held by the two mortgage financiers. Some of the financial firms have been forthcoming with pledges to aggressively defend themselves against the allegations and are disappointed by the fact that FHFA has taken to the courts.

Spectrum Field Services Inc. provides financial institutions across the country with specialized REO preservation and specialty inspection services. Spectrum has been using the third-party certification technology from Pruvan to offer select clients proof-of-performance reporting on inspections since early 2011. Based on the results it's seen so far, Spectrum has decided to extend the service to all of its customers.

State and federal regulators on Friday closed the doors on two Georgia lenders, bringing the number of names on the FDIC's failed-bank list to 70 for the 2011 calendar year. The state of Georgia's banking industry has been especially hard-hit by the real estate and economic downturns. It's been home to the most bank failures since the crisis set in, with 19 institutional closings over the last eight-and-a-half months. Patriot Bank of Georgia in Cumming and CreekSide Bank in Woodstock are the latest casualties.