The housing recovery continues to gather momentum, indicating an ongoing economic upswing according to the Housing Scorecard released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury today. Improving market indicators include home prices, purchases of new homes, and sales of existing homes according to the report.

The housing market is transitioning away from a rebound driven primarily by speculative forces to one where the underlying fundamentals will be much more important. Over the past few years investor purchases have been the primary driver of the housing recovery, helping clear inventories of foreclosed and lender-owned properties and pulling home prices dramatically higher.

Jay Brinkmann, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), has announced that he will retire in early 2014. """"Having the opportunity to work for the mortgage industry through all of the changes of the last 13 years, not to mention becoming MBA's chief economist at the onset of the recession, has been a tremendous but exhausting experience,"""" Brinkmann said.

A California attorney was sentenced to seven years in prison Monday for obstructing an investigation into investment fraud according to Christy Romero, Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP). David Tamman, 46, of Santa Monica, California, was found guilty of ten criminal counts, including obstruction of justice, for lying to investigators while he was a partner at Nixon Peabody law firm last year.

The housing market is transitioning away from a rebound driven primarily by speculative forces to one where the underlying fundamentals will be much more important according to RealtyTrac. Over the past several years investor purchases have been the primary driver of the housing recovery, helping clear inventories of foreclosed and lender-owned properties and raising home prices.

W.J. Bradley Mortgage Capital announced that it has been named to Inc. Magazine’s seventh annual 500|5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. Of those companies listed that generated in excess of $200M in revenue for 2012, W.J. Bradley ranked as the third fastest-growing financial services firm in the United States.

One of the world's leading franchisors of real estate brokerage services, announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 10,000,000 shares of Class A common stock at a public offering price of $22.00 per share. The company has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,500,000 shares of Class A common stock to cover overallotments, if any.

CredAbility and ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions announced Tuesday that they have agreed to merge the two organizations effective December 31, 2013. The name of the new organization will be ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions and its headquarters will be in Atlanta.

HOPE NOW, the private sector association of mortgage servicers,announced Thursday that it had helped approximately 63,000 homeowners modify their mortgages in July. HOPE NOW has helped 6.6 million homeowners modify their mortgages since 2007.

Delinquency and foreclosure rates continued to fall in the second quarter according to the Mortgage Metrics Report issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The Mortgage Metrics Report examined first-lien mortgages held by the top seven lenders in the United States, 52 percent of all residential mortgages.