Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has launched a pilot program and foreclosure prevention hotline to save families at risk of losing their homes when adjustable-rate mortgages reset later in the year. Miller’s pilot program includes a loss mitigation hotline (877.

The U.S. Senate has approved legislation requiring the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)  to utilize $100 million in appropriations to assist American homeowners at-risk of foreclosure.

With subprime loans catching heat for spurring a larger number of foreclosures and defaults, a Texas A&M economist is coming to their defense. There is no reason to overreact and kill something that has served, and could continue to serve, a useful purpose, said Dr.

Lending giant Countrywide Financial Corp. is facing a class-action lawsuit filed by employees who say thousands of workers invested in Countrywide’s 401k program lost millions of dollars when the lender’s stock value plummeted.

The fourth annual Five Star Default Servicing Conference & Expo in Dallas announced the recipients of the inaugural 2007 Five Star Lifetime Achievement & Humanitarian Awards on Monday. The ceremony—conceived on the idea that professionals in the default servicing industry should be honored for their significant accomplishments and all the good they do—took place during the Five Star’s introductory breakfast at the Hilton Anatole hotel.

Economic indicators suggest the U.S. has a 50-percent chance of experiencing a significant recession within the next six months, according to Amy Crews Cutts, deputy chief economist for Freddie Mac. Crews Cutts made that prediction while serving as the keynote speaker for the 2007 Five Star Default Servicing Conference & Expo State of the Industry Luncheon in Dallas, Texas, on Monday.

Integrated Mortgage Solutions (IMS), a firm specializing in collateral protection for the mortgage servicing industry, has launched a new Web Phone Application designed to help contractors communicate information to IMS and its mortgage industry clients in real-time.

The trend of lenders offloading REO properties at auction continues with more than 250 post-foreclosures in California hitting the auction Web site of RealtyBid.com in September. The company, in a press release, said the increase is to be expected with foreclosure auction sales providing financial institutions saddled with the burden of defaulted loans with an obvious solution for settling bad loans.

The U.S. delinquency rate on mortgage loans jumped 28-basis points between the first and second quarters of this year, reaching a delinquency rate of 5.12-percent of all outstanding loans, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) National Delinquency Survey.

Federal financial regulators asked government-regulated financial institutions and state-banks on Tuesday to begin the process of reviewing securitization trusts to identify at-risk borrowers. In a statement issued by the federal regulatory agencies and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), the banks and financial institutions were asked to determine the full extent of their authority under pooling and servicing agreements to identify borrowers at risk of default and pursue appropriate loss mitigation strategies designed to preserve homeownership.