Government

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced temporary eviction moratoriums on all single-family homes and two-to-four unit properties over the holidays. Both companies will enforce the moratorium from December 19 through January 2. The suspension will not affect the pre- or post-foreclosure processes. Servicers may continue the administrative processes involved in foreclosures, but evictions will be delayed until after the start of the new year.

Two California divisions of the Occupy Wall Street movement -- Occupy LA and Occupy Santa Cruz -- are beginning to focus their efforts on halting foreclosures. Mario Brito, leader of Occupy LA, announced a plan this week to pressure both banks and government officials to impose a foreclosure moratorium. Also this week, Occupy Santa Cruz sent a letter to its County Board of Supervisors calling on board members to invoke a foreclosure moratorium and set up a task force to study foreclosure practices.

The Federal Reserve released a new market-gauging rendition of its Beige Book Wednesday. The publication recounts signs of slow to moderate economic growth across 11 of the 12 Fed districts. The St. Louis district was the lone dissenter, reporting a decline in economic activity. Residential real estate activity overall was described as ""sluggish,"" while commercial real estate activity was depicted as ""lackluster"" across most of the nation. Mortgage refinancing, however, was said to have grown at a rapid pace.

Twenty-one members of Congress sent a letter to Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Acting Director Edward DeMarco calling on him to allow - even encourage - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to start reducing principal balances for distressed homeowners. The lawmakers say underwater borrowers pose a greater risk of eventual default. They're advocating for principal writedowns, not ""as a kindness to homeowners,"" but to save taxpayers from future losses.

In conjunction with the changes to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (FRBP) which go into effect on December 1, Fiserv, Inc. announced Wednesday that its LoanServ solution offers the capabilities to help ensure mortgage servicers remain compliant amidst evolving regulations. The rules amend the procedures and policies for servicing loans in bankruptcy and aim to enhance transparency in the process. FRBP governs the filing of proofs of claim and notice issues related to payment changes, post-petition fees, and other accuracy checks related to servicer actions.

Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), has announced the appointments of Richard B. Hornsby, as FHFA's COO and Jon Greenlee as the agency's deputy director of the division of enterprise regulation. Hornsby served at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for 26 years, holding a variety of senior level management and banking supervision positions. Greenlee joins FHFA from KPMG LLP, where he was the managing director in the financial services regulatory advisory practice.

The Office of the Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA-OIG) submitted its semiannual report to Congress reviewing FHFA's actions from April 2011 through September 2011. The FHFA-OIG pointed out several positive developments over the six-month period, including an elimination of the ""golden parachute"" compensation packages often offered to terminated GSE executives. However, these were balanced by a list of areas in need of improvement, most notably that FHFA does not conduct its own reviews of critical operations.

Home prices rose in the third quarter of 2011, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) house price index released Tuesday. The index is calculated using home sales price information from Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-acquired mortgages. It rose 0.2 percent between the second and third quarters. Even with the marginal uptick during the summer months, FHFA's gauge shows that over the past year, home prices have fallen 3.7 percent when compared to the third quarter of 2010.

CoreLogic has announced a new set of services designed specifically to address the anticipated increase in refinance activity expected from revisions to the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). Many lenders are expected to look to third-party providers to help them manage the expected spike in mortgage refinancing. CoreLogic says its new HARP 2.0 offerings will combine the company's data and analytics with experienced teams of outsourcing professionals to improve operational pull-through.

About 2.5 percent of current mortgage balances in the U.S. transitioned into delinquency during the third quarter, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Monday. That assessment reverses a recent trend of reductions in the measure of newly delinquent mortgage balances, going back to the third quarter of 2010. Some 264,000 individuals had a foreclosure notation added to their credit reports between June 30 and September 30. New bankruptcies over the period tallied 423,000.