Government

The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has instructed mortgage servicers to advance $1,500 to borrowers completing short sales or deeds-in-lieu (DIL) of foreclosure on VA loans in order to assist with relocation costs. The federal agency says it has a longstanding policy of encouraging servicers to work with veteran borrowers to help them retain their homes or, when that is not feasible, to mitigate losses by pursuing alternatives to foreclosure.

Oglethorpe Bank in Brunswick, Georgia, was shut down by state regulators over the weekend. The FDIC brokered a deal with Bank of the Ozarks in Little Rock, Arkansas to take over the operations of the failed lender. The Georgia bank marks the third bank closing of 2011, just two weeks into the new year. Bank of the Ozarks has been rapidly expanding its presence in the southeastern part of the United States. This is its fifth FDIC-assisted acquisition in the area within the past year.

First Lenders Data, Inc. (FLDI) has announced the availability of FirstClose, a single-point dashboard that aggregates nationally recognized vendors and service providers online. The new solution assists mortgage lenders in complying with the new interagency regulatory appraisal and evaluation guidelines that became effective December 2010. FirstClose combines the company's existing automated valuation models (AVMs) with its Property Condition Report and AVM back-testing.

Recent data from Barclays Capital examines the ramifications of the fourth quarter foreclosure debacles on REO roll rates. Data released Friday shows the foreclosure-to-REO rate dropped 57 percent in judicial states the last few months of 2010, and dropped 42 percent in the non-judicial states. In New York, the roll rate ground to a near stop, dropping a whopping 91 percent in December when compared to the rate from January to October 2010.

Income and expense data released by the Federal Reserve this week shows the central bank is earning a pretty penny from its investments in mortgage securities. The Fed began buying mortgage bonds from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae in November of 2008 to help prop up the nation's deteriorating mortgage markets. In 2009, Fed officials reported that these efforts, combined with its purchases of Treasury securities, yielded a $46.1 billion profit. In 2010, earnings on those investments jumped to $76.2 billion.

According to a report released Thursday by the Woodstock Institute, vacant homes in the city of Chicago are piling up and costing the city millions of dollars while bringing crime and blight to neighborhoods. According to the report, there were more than 18,000 properties on the city of Chicago's vacant buildings index as of September 2010. Vacant and abandoned properties can rapidly spiral into disrepair, affecting the values of neighboring properties and attracting criminal activity.

The Federal Reserve published its latest edition of the popular Beige Book Wednesday. Based on information received from contacts in the field, the central bank says economic activity across the country ""continued to expand moderately"" during the last part of 2010 with steady improvements seen in labor markets. However, the real estate sector, and residential housing in particular, continues to be a significant hurdle for the economic recovery, with local housing markets characterized as ""sluggish.""

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in an attempt to set aside a March ruling by the department that declared loan officers are entitled to overtime pay. In 2006 DOL issued an interpretation to MBA stating that typical loan officers were exempt from overtime pay. But in March of 2010, DOL released an administrative interpretation that rescinded the previous opinion, now mandating that loan officers are entitled to overtime pay.

A recent report examining the role of private mortgage insurance reveals the instrument serves a vital role in helping to establish stability within the housing market. The study, conducted by Promontory Financial Group, provides a review of how private mortgage insurance policies protect mortgage lenders and investors against the risk of defaulted mortgages by taking on a part of that risk, and how they make private capital more readily available to a broader range of potential borrowers.

Reports have surfaced that the FDIC is contemplating stricter requirements that would force banks to disclose what potential ramifications a loan modification on a first lien they service would have on an underlying lien. Industry analysts have speculated that servicers may be reluctant to modify a primary loan because the bank that services the loan also holds the second lien. Such an arrangement could be considered a conflict of interest and prompts some to wonder if investors would be swayed if they knew of the arrangement beforehand.