First American Title Insurance Company recently introduced a new Mortgage Services division, which will address the title, settlement, and valuation needs of residential originators with national retail platforms. The new business unit will replace two legacy divisions of First American Title Insurance Company: National Lenders Advantage and Equity Loan Services.

Florida Realtors named Cynthia Shelton as its 50th Florida Realtor of the Year at the association's recent 94th annual Convention & Trade Expo in Orlando. Award winners are honored as individual lifetime contributors to their local Realtor board, community, state association, and the National Association of Realtors. Shelton served as 2009 president of Florida Realtors and has served on the NAR board of directors for 25 years.

HUD released a new survey of New Orleans area housing conditions this week. The agency says its the most comprehensive analysis of the metro's housing stock since the department's last assessment in 2004 (prior to Hurricane Katrina). In the five years since Hurricane Katrina struck the area, the New Orleans metro lost 75,000 housing units, nearly 13 percent of its housing stock, and the median monthly cost of housing rose by nearly 33 percent from $662 in 2004 to $882 in 2009.

Green River Capital announced a 30 percent increase in sales figures during the first half of 2010 due to new clients and increased efficiencies. Since early 2010, the company has also increased REO assignments by nearly 8 percent from the same period in 2009 and decreased the time each property spends on the market by almost 15 percent compared to figures during the last 12 months.

UCM Partners, a private, minority-owned fixed income investment boutique, recently announced the one-year anniversary of its Opportunistic Mortgage Strategy Fund. The fund currently has approximately $60 million in assets under management, and UCM Partners reports that it exceeded its absolute return target of 12-15 percent by more than double in its first year.

Mortgage Contracting Services LLC (MCS) recently announced the availability of its code enforcement mini-summits, as an extension of its initiatives to ensure industry-wide education and collaboration. The nationwide provider of property preservation and REO maintenance services calls its program ""an interactive information exchange"" to provide specialized education and encourage collaboration between the code enforcement community and other default industry participants.

Kennedy Wilson, a California-based real estate investment and services firm, was tapped by a major financial institution to conduct an auction for $80.9 million of bank-owned REO properties. Rhett Winchell, president of Kennedy Wilson Auction Group, described the auction as ""another exclusive offering in a long series of commercial auctions.""

The California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) has partnered with the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to offer a fixed rate, 30-year FHA-insured mortgage to low- and moderate- income California families who purchase their first home. Benefits include below-market interest rates and affordable down payments. CalHFA says many first-time homebuyers cannot meet the loan requirements of conventional lenders and its new program will help open the door to homeownership for California families.

A survey conducted of more than 5,000 licensed appraisers across the country by the appraisal management company Coester Appraisal reveals that only 3 percent of appraiser respondents have less than five years of experience, a result that contradicts lenders' and independent appraisers' claims that appraisal management companies (AMCs) are employing inexperienced appraisers. More than half of the AMC appraiser respondents have been in the business for 15 years or more.

Steve Archambault, Democratic candidate for attorney general in the state of Rhode Island, recently released details of his plan to combat mortgage fraud and protect consumers in his state. According to the Mortgage Asset Research Institute, Rhode Island led the nation in mortgage fraud in 2008. Archambault says he also plans to target current banking practices that contributed to historically low home values.