Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has asked three of the state’s top lenders to implement foreclosure prevention measures to help borrowers thwart the threat of default when $600-billion worth of subprime adjustable-rate mortgages hit rate resets in Texas next year.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its annual cost study this week, which shows mortgage banking production profits falling in 2006 to an amount as low as negative $50 per loan, a stark contrast to the positive $258 per loan profit experienced in 2005.

Houston, Texas-based Oxford Funding Corp., a company specializing in the purchase of performing and underperforming loans from the secondary market, has signed a letter of intent to acquire $1.5 million worth of mortgages from lenders.

Rochester, New York-based law firm, Davidson, Fink, Cook, Kelly & Galbraith, LLP, announced this week that it’s changing its name to Davidson Fink, LLP to support the firm’s new marketing campaign.

Street Resource Group Inc., a technology and consulting company that services mortgage warehouse lenders, announced this week the formation of the Investor Issues Committee%{=text-decoration: none;}—%a group that aims to tackle the many challenges mortgage warehouse lenders and investors face in today’s marketplace.

The President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said this week that commercial and savings banks have the potential to become life rafts for struggling or at-risk subprime borrowers.

A new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) remains optimistic about the 2008 housing market, stating that it expects existing homes sales to reach 6.12 million in 2008, up from 5.78 this year.

Foreclosure filings in the United States dropped a slight 8-percent between the months of August and September, but remained 99-percent higher when compared to the number of filings recorded during September of last year, according to RealtyTrac’s September 2007 U.

The private and public sectors converged on Wednesday when U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Secretary Alphonso Jackson with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a new alliance, called HOPE NOW, in which both agencies agreed to partner with leading mortgage servicers to prevent home foreclosures.

The president of the National Tax Limitation Committee organization that advocates for taxpayer rights—issued a warning this week, saying a complete government bailout of distressed homeowners in the state of Ohio would have the detrimental affect of hurting the entire state’s economy.