During a Friday press conference, President George W. Bush announced several government initiatives designed to save distressed borrowers from foreclosure. The president said, while a federal bailout of lenders would only encourage a recurrence of the problem, he strongly encouraged lenders to work with struggling debtors to resolve the flood of homes now stuck in default.

Eagan, Minnesota-based AllRegs, an online publisher servicing the mortgage industry, launched a Web-based HMDA data mining and exploration tool, called Lending Patterns™, on Thursday to help lenders analyze millions of records.

Real estate investors defaulting on second mortgages have contributed significantly to the mortgage delinquency rates in states like Nevada, California, Arizona, and Florida, according to a new report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Richmond, Virginia-based LandAmerica Financial Group Inc., a provider of real estate transaction services, announced a 13-percent staff reduction in its residential and lender services sector this week.

The housing slump in the United States claimed more jobs this week when EquiFirst Corp., a subprime mortgage lending unit that operates under the umbrella of British bank Barclays Plc, announced staff reductions.

The state of Massachusetts has yet to relinquish its reputation as a state with a foreclosure problem. A new report from The Warren Group, which offers a variety of real estate information and services, says the Bay State recorded 2,185 petitions to foreclose in land court in July, a 66.

A new report from Fitch Ratings says it’s likely the slowdown in the U.S. housing market will persist through 2008 and continue its disruption of the home construction industry. In a press release, Fitch said, Not surprisingly, the highly visible problems in the housing financial system are contributing to a wait and see attitude among prospective home buyers and reducing builder confidence in the single-family housing market.

A new report from the National Association of Realtors) says total existing home sales dropped 0.2-percent to a seasonally-adjusted rate of 1 of 5.75 million units in July, which is a 9-percent drop when compared to the 6.

Investors grew increasingly more skeptical about the overall U.S. economy in August because of troubles boiling in the subprime real estate market and growing concerns over energy prices, a new report from the UBS/Gallup Index of Investor Optimism says.

The Miami, Florida-based real estate law firm of Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod LLP has formed a distressed property group that will focus on troubled areas in the marketplace by providing services that help distressed owners, investors, lenders and financing sources focus on handling problems and forging productive solutions in the marketplace.