Median prices for REO and short sale transactions continue to decline. A new report from CoreLogic shows distressed home prices at the national level have fallen 10 percent since 2009. The company notes, however, that new foreclosure auction filings have dropped significantly since last October, and the industry's shadow inventory has been trimmed. With these two distressed sale drivers narrowing, CoreLogic says such transactions will likely begin to decline late in 2011 and into 2012.

Wells Fargo & Company has appointed Mike Heid president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Heid previously served as co-president of the mortgage company, along with Cara Heiden, who is retiring from her position within the next few months. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage will be housed as part of the company's new consumer lending group, which will be led by Avid Modjtabai.

Pro Teck Valuation Services recently announced that Sarah Baldo has been promoted to sales VP, reporting to Ed Hunter, executive director. Baldo joined Pro Teck in 2009 as a senior account manager. The company says her success has led to an expanded role in sales. Prior to Pro Teck, Baldo had been at UBS Investment Bank and Clayton Holdings.

For the second month since recording an official double-dip in home prices, the S&P/Case-Shiller index has posted an uptick. Data released Tuesday by Standard & Poor's shows that 16 of the 20 metros included in the study and both composites reported positive monthly increases. The 10- and 20-city composites were up 1.1 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively, in May over April. Detroit, Las Vegas, and Tampa were down over the month and Phoenix was unchanged.

Fannie Mae has issued a notice to servicers alerting them of a change in the effective date for new delinquency management and default prevention standards. According to the bulletin, Fannie is pushing the date by which servicers must implement the new requirements out by a month to October 1, 2011. The revised rules are part of the directive issued by the company's regulator in late April to bring both Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's procedures for handling past-due mortgages in line with one another.

BlackBox Logic, LLC recently entered into agreements with several prominent academic institutions and faculty members to provide researchers with data on U.S. and international residential real estate and capital markets. In addition, BlackBox recently expanded to offer data covering residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) in the United Kingdom, with plans to expand that service to other European countries.

First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. (FGMC) will now offer Fannie Mae HomePath and HomePath renovation products through its wholesale lending and consumer direct lending channels. HomePath is the GSE's venture for marketing and selling REO properties it takes ownership of after the foreclosure process, providing special financing terms for the purchase of select Fannie Mae-owned properties. FGMC is one of only a handful of mortgage lenders in the country to be approved to provide the HomePath product.

Home prices, which have been sputtering along for much of the year, are likely to dip further by the end of 2011, according to the results of a nationwide industry survey of real estate agents. Factors cited as driving an expected decline include restricted financing for real estate investors, a large gap between the supply of distressed properties and demand from first-time homebuyers, and the shadow inventory of both foreclosed and short sale properties.

WFG National Title Insurance Company has added Stephen Sklamba and Liz Pecoraro to its Louisiana agency division. Sklamba will serve as a VP and Louisiana underwriting counsel for the Louisiana agency group. He will be based in the New Orleans area. Pecoraro will serve as Louisiana state sales manager and will be based in the Baton Rouge area.

State and federal regulators closed the doors on three lending institutions over the weekend -- LandMark Bank of Florida, Southshore Community Bank also in Florida, and Bank of Choice out of Colorado. This latest round of closings brings the number of lenders on the FDIC's failed-bank list to 58 for the year. Together, the three seizures are expected to cost the federal agency $256 million.