Realtor.com released its list of the top ten turnaround towns for the 2011 fourth quarter. While the ten towns listed - eight of which are in Florida - suffered from high foreclosure rates, they are now rebounding. Miami, Florida, at number one, had sales of existing single-family homes shoot up 51 percent in the third quarter compared to a year ago, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. The turnaround list was developed based on year-over-year price appreciation, reductions in year-over-year median age of inventory, and declines in inventory levels.

The Economic Report of the President was released by the White House Friday, and included a summary on how the administration has and will attempt to move the housing market forward towards stability. The theme for report was To Recover, Rebalance, and Rebuild, and when addressing the housing market, the report stated that while housing markets are stabilizing in many regions, the healing process will take time. In order to restore the housing market back to health, the report spoke of initiatives from the Obama administration including the reduction of inventory for foreclosed homes by converting them to rental units.

Zillow, Inc. announced the hiring of a new VP of partner relations. Robert D. Bemis was appointed for the position and has 25 years of experience in the real estate industry. Bemis will be responsible for creating new partner relationships with real estate brokers, agents and multiple listings services(MLSs). In 2011, Bemis was named one of the 100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders by Inman News.

American Home Mortgage Servicing(AHMSI) announced that the company will change its name to Homeward Residential, and is expecting this conversion to take place after the second quarter. The name change is a move to reflect the company's expansion into residential lending and other real estate finance related businesses.

To help companies stay in compliance with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), eMason introduced a software application to alert mortgage services of borrowers who are on active duty. CLARIFIRE automatically requests and stores DOD certificates and alerts users of active duty status through a dashboard view of these loans.

ISGN Corporation now includes an IT group among the list of services it provides to the mortgage industry. The IT services group assists companies with building an IT strategy to meet business needs. ISGN offers a variety of IT solutions including project consultation, infrastructure management, and application development and maintenance.

The risk for property valuation fraud rose nearly 8 percent for this fourth quarter, according to the Mortgage Fraud Risk Report released by Interthinkx. This rise caused certain regions of the New York Tri-State region to move into the high risk category. The national mortgage fraud risk index also increased by 1.4 percent compared to the last quarter and 3.6 percent since a year ago. With an index value of 247, Arizona overtook Nevada as the riskiest state. Nevada, now at number two, ranked first in this category since the first quarter of 2010.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is still at an all-time low of 3.87 percent and it's been there since the first week of February, according to the weekly market survey published by Freddie Mac. The 30-year average has managed to remain below 4 percent for the past 11 weeks, and below 5 percent for the past 52 weeks, dating back to February 17, 2011. The 15-year rate was also unchanged in the GSE's study, while the 5-year adjustable rate posted a slight decline and the 1-year adjustable rate increased.

CitiMortgage, a subsidiary of CitiBank, agreed to pay $158.3 million due to claims that the bank failed to comply with HUD and FHA requirements in underwriting loans for federal insurance, and for stating certain loans were eligible for FHA's mortgage insurance program when they were not. As a result of these actions, HUD incurred losses from defaulted loans that should not have been approved. CitiMortgage accepted responsibility for specific actions including failing to conduct a full review of certain loans it endorsed.

A recent Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) report revealed that overall, delinquencies and foreclosures are on a decline, and when gauging where the U.S. housing market stands in terms of recovery, Jay Brinkmann, MBA's chief economist, says we are about halfway to the pre-recession days. Overall, the delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four unit residential properties decreased to 7.58 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared to 7.99 percent in the third.