Mortgage rates moved higher this week off the previous week's record lows as Treasury bond yields rose and other housing data showed improvement. One anomaly was the 5-year adjustable-rate mortgage, which declined one-tenths of a percentage point to set a new all-time low. The 30-year fixed rate rose to 4.22 percent, while the 15-year rate came in at 3.44 percent.

HOPE LoanPort has announced a partnership with the state of Maryland and GMAC Mortgage to deliver a direct-to-consumer foreclosure mediation portal. GMAC is funding development of the portal and will be the first mortgage servicer to use it. The portal, scheduled to go live in October 2011, will be the first statewide program in the nation to allow homeowners and servicers to exchange documents electronically prior to foreclosure mediation.

A2Z Field Services, a provider of property inspection, preservation, and REO market-ready services nationwide, has announced the promotion of Amie Sparks to SVP of operations. Sparks is responsible for all aspects of national operations, including management of three HUD Field Services Management (FSM) contracts, which were awarded in June 2010 and renewed in June 2011.

Short sales shot up 19 percent between the first and second quarters, with 102,407 transactions completed during the April-to-June period, according to RealtyTrac. Over the same timeframe, a total of 162,680 bank-owned REO homes sold to third parties, virtually unchanged from the first quarter. RealtyTrac's study also found that the time to complete a short sale is down, while the time it takes to sell an REO has lengthened. Discounts on both types of distressed properties increased last quarter.

The delinquency rate on loans in U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) rose 22 basis points in July to hit 9.24 percent, according to Moody's. The increase follows two months in which delinquencies edged lower, and marks the seventh consecutive month the rate has come in above the 9 percent mark. The balance of loan delinquencies increased by $835 million last month. Moody's says CMBS delinquencies are likely to remain in the high single-digit range for the near term.

Home prices were 0.6 percent lower in the second quarter than in the first quarter of 2011, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). The agency's index is calculated using purchase price information on homes backing mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Looking at this data over the past year, home prices have fallen 5.9 percent. That's the biggest annual drop recorded by FHFA since the second quarter of 2009.

Safeguard Properties announced the results of a diversity survey of its vendor network, showing that 33 percent of its contracted services in 2010 went to businesses owned by women, minorities, veterans and people with disabilities. Annual expenditures with these companies exceeded $153 million. Safeguard CEO Alan Jaffa made the announcement on Monday at the company's Eighth Annual Vendor Conference in Cleveland, attended by more than 1,500 vendors from across the country.

Mortgage Contracting Services LLC (MCS), a nationwide provider of property preservation, inspections, and REO property maintenance, announced Wednesday the addition of Anthony Calabrese as assistant vice president. Stationed in the company's Dallas office, Calabrese will focus his efforts on the operations and business development of MCS' pre-sale preservation services. Calabrese most recently was an operations manager at CoreLogic.

The research firm John Burns Real Estate Consulting says if you're looking to find a comparable point of reference for current median home prices, prepare to take a trip back in time. On the positive end of the rankings, a bevy of Texas markets have reverted to circa 2006. Other especially hard-hit markets, such as Atlanta and Phoenix, have turned back the clock more than a decade. The nation's capital city, Los Angeles, and Fort Lauderdale fall somewhere in between.

First Preston Management, Inc., based out of Addison, Texas, has taken a new name, First Preston HT. The company's various brands within the asset management industry - First Preston, HomeTelos, HomeTracker, Lender Center, and BidSelect - are now unified in the market under the new First Preston HT name. First Preston HT's combined real estate services and technology have been used to sell more than 400,000 properties and manage a portfolio values at over $35 billion for its clients.