Real estate auction company Williams & Williams announced it is hosting an investor-only auction event for bank-owned properties not yet on the market. The ""First Look Investor-only Auction Event"" provides an opportunity for pre-market purchases to experienced investors.

Online real estate marketplace Auction.com named Sheryl Roland as EVP of human resources. Roland's appointment requires her to oversee talent acquisition and management, total rewards, and employee relations on a global scale.

WNC, a national investor in real estate and community development initiatives, announced Anil Advani rejoined the firm as SVP of private label funds. Advani, a 17-year tax credit veteran, previously oversaw WNC's underwriting department and now serves in a new role created to grow the company's private label fund business with large institutional investors.

The regulatory tidal wave has come upon the industry, declared David Stevens, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), in a written speech Wednesday. ""Over 3500 pages of regulations have been released in just the first few weeks of 2013 and many more will be released by mid-year,"" said Stevens in his remarks for the MBA's National Mortgage Servicing Conference & Expo. In light of the rules, Stevens advised ""listening to the CFPB staff explain the rules,"" while also ""letting them know, respectfully, what works, what doesn't and what we need to work on together.""

Consumer credit default rates improved at the start of 2013, with noteworthy progress for first mortgage defaults, according to the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices. The default rate for first mortgages dropped to 1.58 percent, down from 1.68 percent in December 2012 and 2.08 percent in January 2012. The second mortgage default rate was unchanged from December at 0.69 percent, but down sharply from 1.30 percent in January 2012.

Renters across the country are less likely to default compared to a year ago, but the risk of not fulfilling lease obligations has increased on a quarterly basis, according to CoreLogic’s SafeRent Renter Applicant Risk (RAR) index report. With an index value above 100 indicating less risk, CoreLogic's national index stood at 103 in the Q4 2012, up from 101 in Q4 2011, but down from 106 in Q3 2012.

The STRATMOR Group, a mortgage industry advisory firm, brought on Garth Graham as a new partner. In his new role, Graham is responsible for leading STRATMOR's marketing strategy and execution practice.

In a blog post, a Freddie Mac executive revealed more than one-third of U.S. households are renters, the largest share since 1997, yet adequate, affordable rental housing is still out of reach for many. According to David Brickman, SVP of multifamily at Freddie Mac, the nation has seen 5.4 million new renter households between 2004 and 2011, and growth is expected to continue. At the same time, Brickman noted more than half of all renters in the country exhaust more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

Carrington Technology Solutions, LLC (Carrington) and Equator, a default servicing technology provider, teamed up to provide financial institutions, institutional investors, and large-scale property management companies with a single-family asset management suite created to maximize the performance of multiple-property portfolios.

RealtyTrac is now offering RealtyTrac Network (RTN)—a licensed network for leading independent and franchised brokerage companies. Through RTN, select brokerages will have an exclusive relationship with RealtyTrac that comes with access to local real estate data and trends, seller and buyer leads, and additional neighborhood data.