Government

PCV Murcor is unveiling its newest valuation tool to mortgage industry professionals this week at the Mortgage Bankers Association's 99th Annual Convention in Chicago. It's called Rental Broker Price Opinion (BPO)--a tiered offering that includes a BPO, automated rent estimate (ARE), and an optional reconciled broker opinion of the ARE.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) is stepping up and speaking out in defense of JPMorgan Chase, calling the U.S. government's lawsuit against the financial institution a case of ""no good deed goes unpunished."" New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a suit against JPMorgan on October 1 for the alleged misconduct of Bear Stearns & Co. prior to JPMorgan's acquisition of the failing investment bank, and Frank says he has first-hand knowledge that federal officials urged JPMorgan to ""do a good deed"" by taking over an institution which JPMorgan would never have sought to acquire absent that urging.

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.

At the 99th annual Mortgage Bankers Association conference, President David H. Stevens called on active involvement from the association's members as MBA ramps up its presence in Washington, hoping to affect change in the way the housing industry regulation is currently viewed and approached. Stevens voiced the need for the administration to put in place a housing policy coordinator, ""a traffic cop for all new rules."" He also expressed hopes to change the GSEs' rulemaking process to allow for comment from the industry prior to implication.

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.

Two former executives of American Mortgage Specialists Inc. pled guilty Friday in a federal court in North Dakota for their part in a $27 million bank fraud scheme that put BNC National Bank at risk, according to a release from the Justice Department.

Oftentimes, when the idea of home affordability is calculated, the focus is on the monthly mortgage payment, and how to bring that particular number down through a modification or refinancing. One report assessed the burden of housing expenses combined with transportation costs to offer a more comprehensive view of what defines housing affordability. Overall, research results found moderate-income households, or households earning 50 to 100 percent of the median income of their metropolitan area, spent 59 percent of their income on housing and transportation costs in 2010.

The city of Reading in Pennsylvania is taking the issue of vacant properties into their own hands through a program called CORE. CORE seeks to sell government-owned abandoned properties in an effort to revitalize the community and help people in the area achieve homeownership.

Less than half of the states' $2.5 billion from the national mortgage servicing settlement is being used for housing initiatives as intended, according to Enterprise Community Partners. It's been six months since a federal judge approved the agreement between the nation's five largest mortgage servicers and state and federal officials, and Enterprise says to date, states have announced housing- and foreclosure-related plans for $966 million of their settlement share; $988 million has been diverted to states' general funds or non-housing uses; and $588 million has yet to be allocated.

A recent C.A.R. survey revealed 64 percent of California Realtors expressed difficulty in closing short sales, an improvement from 77 percent in August 2011 and 70 percent in 2010. However, the more significant improvement was the drop in Realtors who described the short sale process as ""extremely difficult."" More than half of the Realtors surveyed in 2011 said the process was ""extremely difficult"" compared to about a third (34 percent) in 2012. Among the main obstacles Realtors faced, slow response time from the lender was the most highly cited.