The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) issued new guidelines for manually underwritten loan applications that should improve a lender's ability to evaluate borrowers' risk and reduce credit requirement ""overlays"" that exceed FHA's lending standards. The agency says the move will help restore its depleted Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund from which it pays claims without forcing lenders to over-tighten credit standards.

The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) of San Francisco has elected Pacific Premier Bancorp CEO Steven R. Gardner to its board of directors. Gardner was voted in by FHLB San Francisco's member institutions.

QuestSoft Corp., an automated mortgage compliance software provider, was one of 50 companies named in the Orange County Register's list of the top small companies to work for, which was based on surveys conducted with more than 60,000 employees from more than 1,000 companies across Orange County.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is lowering loan limits on single-family mortgages next year, HUD announced. The federal agency's maximum ceiling for single-family loans will drop from $729,750 to $625,000. HUD estimates about 650 counties will see lower thresholds in 2014. Exceptions have been extended to counties in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the Virgin Islands to account for greater construction costs.

Following a play by Democrats to defang Republicans' filibuster powers, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Rep. Mel Watt (D-North Carolina) as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). The vote went 57-41 in Watt's favor, the Wall Street Journal reports. All Senate Democrats voted in favor of confirmation; they were joined across the aisle by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Richard Burr (R-North Carolina).

Valuations expert Craig Zielazny has joined Platinum Data Solutions to help build out its automated valuation model (AVM) offerings, the company announced. As Platinum Data's new SVP of valuation analytics, Zielazny is tasked with growing its valuation analytics channel, which includes 18 non-proprietary AVMs and an AVM testing technology.

Pro Teck Valuation Services introduced Appraisal Desktop with Inspection (ADI), a new hybrid appraisal product for home equity and second mortgage lending. As a USPAP-compliant desktop appraisal platform, ADI was designed to fill the gap between an automated valuation model with property condition report and a field appraisal.

A total of 38,908 insurance certificates for borrowers seeking to buy or refinance a home were issued by members of Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA) in October. That number sits lower than most other months of 2013 and is nearly 4,000 less than last October. At the same time, dollar volume on insurance written throughout the month was the lowest since May 2012.

Appraisal Logistics, a provider of compliant appraisal management solutions for the mortgage industry, announced it has received the ISO 9001:2008 Certification for Quality Management Systems Standards by LQRA, passing a formal evaluation created to examine quality management standards in the financial services industry.

Hubzu, an online real estate marketplace, has a new leader on board. The company named Eric M. Koenig as its new president. Koenig has experience driving growth initiatives for technology brands, having served most recently as COO and SVP of global business operations at Expedia.