Embattled subprime lender New Century Financial Corp. cut approximately 200 jobs and closed nine facilities in Houston earlier this month, according to a letter the company filed with the Texas Workforce Commission.

Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Residential Capital, LLC will be cutting approximately 1,000 jobs – all of which are related to the company’s mortgage business and corporate services functions.

The state of New Hampshire experienced a 95 percent increase in foreclosures between the first quarter of 2006 and the first quarter of 2007, according to a new report from ForeclosuresNH.com, a foreclosure reporting service dedicated to tracking foreclosures in the state.

Santa Ana, California-based The First American Corp. named Landon Taylor senior vice president, director of market development. Taylor’s new role will include challenging new endeavors while also allowing him to continue to oversee First American’s nationwide strategic markets business strategy, which he launched four years ago.

Shares of stock from New Century Financial Corp. will be removed from the New York Stock Exchange, according to documents included in the embattled lender’s latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Paradise Valley, Arizona-based Home Experts for Loan Foreclosure said it hopes to save more distressed homeowners from foreclosure by launching its services in 16 additional states including Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, California, Chicago, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, New York, Maryland, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Ohio, Oregon, and Minnesota.

Washington Mutual is helping some of its subprime borrowers by setting aside $2 billion in rescue funds that will later be used to move nonprime borrowers into safer loan options. WaMu says its borrower’s assistance program was designed to help nonprime borrowers who are current on their payments by providing them with a team of loan counseling specialists, prime mortgage product options, or discounted loans that include a 30-year fixed-rate subprime loan option with the interest rate currently discounted by 50 basis points.

Is it big brother calling – or a boon for the mortgage banking industryx Those are some of the questions circulating after the U.S. Supreme Court passed a decision granting the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency the position to preempt state laws when regulating national bank subsidiaries.

Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosures, says foreclosure activity nationwide continued to trend upward last month based on information released in its March 2007 U.

Santa Ana, California-based First American Home Buyers Protection Corp., an arm of The First American Corp., has named Daniel T. Langston and Lawrence F. Hariton to the positions of president and chief operating officer, respectively.