Borrowers who refinance through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) save an average of $83 per week, yet there are still hundreds of thousands of borrowers who are reluctant to refinance, according to a recent commentary authored by Tom Seidenstein, VP for financial markets and policy research at Fannie Mae&'s Economic and Strategic Research Group. To find out what drives borrowers, including those who are underwater, to refinance, the GSE's research group surveyed 2,400 borrowers with Fannie Mae loans who fit HARP eligibility criteria. The survey found 34 percent did not refinance because of closing costs, making it the most commonly cited reason.

Venable LLP selected experienced bankruptcy counsel Jamie L. Edmonson to lead the firm's newly opened Wilmington, Delaware office. Edmonson joins Venable from Bayard, PA, where she served as director.

CoreLogic announced the appointment of Pam Storm as SVP of specialty credit. Storm brings more than 15 years of risk management experience to the company.

Safeguard Properties announced about 250 of the company's minority- and women-owned vendor businesses completed small business training through Partnership for Small Business Development (PSBD). PSBD is collaboration between Safeguard, Citi, and the Foundation for Small Business Development.

Fannie Mae unveiled 2012 program results for the Servicer Total Achievement and Rewards (STAR) scorecard. The STAR program was introduced to recognize Fannie Mae servicers and establish servicing standards. ""STAR is one of the many ways that we are helping servicers improve their work with homeowners,"" said Leslie Peeler, SVP of Fannie Mae's national servicing organization. The final STAR Program designations, set to be released in April, will evaluate customer service and foreclosure prevention, as well as operational assessments of the servicer's processes, policies, and capabilities.

When economic times were especially shaky, commercial and multifamily mortgages stood firmly in place compared to other loan types held by banks and thrifts, according to a DataNote from the Mortgage Bankers Association. For example, during the recession, the association noted the amount of commercial and multifamily mortgage debt extended and held by financial institutions remained steady. In addition, commercial and multifamily mortgages had the lowest charge-off rates compared to other loan types.

Unhindered by winter weather, the home price recovery pressed on in January as CoreLogic's home price index (HPI) rose nearly 10 percent year-over-year. When including distressed sales, January prices were up 9.7 percent from a year ago, representing the biggest increase since April 2006, CoreLogic reported Tuesday. From December 2012 to January 2013, prices managed to show positive growth and inched up by 0.7 percent. ""With these gains, the housing market is poised to enter the spring selling season on sound footing,"" said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

National home prices continued to post strong annual gains into February, while quarterly increases stabilized, Clear Capital reported Tuesday. Home prices in February were up 6.1 percent year-over-year, the strongest yearly growth since August 2010 when the home buyer tax credit influenced demand, according to Clear Capital's Home Data Index (HDI). ""While February's yearly growth of 6.1% is encouraging, let's keep in mind this rate of growth is measured against the market's bottom, which we reported in our March 2012 Market Report,"" said Dr. Alex Villacorta, director of research and analytics at Clear Capital.

First Financial Network (FFN) hired Tim Buss to join the company as SVP of business development. Buss' new role requires him to lead business development, create client focused solutions, and assist in marketing specific loans secured by commercial real estate.

Duval & Stachenfeld LLP recruited leading real estate attorneys Tom O'Connor and Alan S. Cohen as partners in the New York office.