Mortgage rate movement this week was ""so slight it was almost nonexistent,"" according to data from Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com. Freddie Mac's survey showed a bit of movement in fixed rates, with the 30-year fixed averaging 3.41 percent (0.7 point), up from 3.37 percent in the previous survey. The 15-year fixed averaged 2.72 percent (0.6 point), up from 2.66 percent. Bankrate's weekly survey revealed even smaller changes: The 30-year fixed dropped to 3.61 percent from 3.62 percent last week, while the 15-year fixed slid to 2.90 percent from 2.91 percent before.

National home values in the third quarter experienced their biggest increase in more than half a decade, according to Zillow. Home values in the United States rose 1.3 percent from the second to the third quarter, marking the fourth straight quarter of increases, Zillow reported. In addition, the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) rose year-over-year, increasing 3.2 percent to $153,800. The recovery pace has been uneven across markets, however. As the summer buying season ended, many metro areas reported decreasing quarterly values.

The Federal Reserve's recently-announced commitment to keep interest rates low until 2015 isn't doing much to persuade consumers to borrow, according to Bankrate's Financial Security Index for October. Seventy-four percent of consumers said they are not interested in taking on debt, while 23 percent said they are more inclined to borrow. Three percent said they did not know. While the Fed's announcement was intended to stimulate economic activity, it may have had the opposite effect, one expert told Bankrate.

Dallas-based diversified servicing company Wingspan Portfolio Advisorswas named the 2012 recipient of the ""Servicer of the Year"" award by Mortgage Technology Magazine, the firm announced.

The FDIC's deposit insurance fund got a little bit lighter Friday as three more banks fell. GulfSouth Private Bank of Destin, Florida; Excel Bank of Sedalia, Missouri; and First East Side Savings Bank of Tamarac, Florida, were all liquidated bringing the national failure tally to 46 so far in 2012 and costing the FDIC's insurance fund a combined total of approximately $86.1 million.

There are many popular social games that allow people to create cities for virtual dwellers, but none of them have ever helped players in their real-life living situations. Until PopRox Entertainment CEO Mike Gramling stepped onto the scene, that is. Gramling, the mind behind city-building game Race 4 My Place, said he started to see the situation many homeowners were left in after the housing crash when he had to deal with his own mortgage burden.

Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC) announced it is now offering mortgage insurance through Ellie Mae's Encompass360 mortgage management software.

A rather rough quarter for Bank of America resulted in a better-than-anticipated quarterly net income of $340 million, the bank reported. Citing legal expenses (totaling $1.6 billion) and debit valuation adjustments ($1.9 billion), BofA saw its quarterly revenue drop drastically year-over-year from $6.2 billion in third-quarter 2011.

With home prices down so far down from their peak and mortgage rates hovering around record lows, many analysts are saying home affordability could hardly be any higher. However, a study released by Interest.com shows homes are only truly affordable in about half of the nation’s major cities. Rising expenses and stagnant wages are preventing median-income households from being able to afford median-income homes, explained Mike Sante, managing editor for Interest.com.

A Virginia man received a sentence of 14 years in federal prison for carrying out elaborate and sophisticated fraud schemes that took millions away from investors and the government, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) announced.