News

The Five Star Institute announced the addition Friday of Biniam T. Gebre, Acting Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), as a featured speaker at the Sixth Annual Five Star Government Forum on March 18 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Gebre will sit down for a one-on-one interview with Five Star Institute President and CEO Ed Delgado to discuss FHA policies, standards, and programs impacting housing and homeownership across the United States.

ADP Research Institute reported the addition of 213,000 private sector jobs for the month of January on a seasonally-adjusted basis in its January 2015 National Employment Report released this week.

Investigations conducted by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) into crime and civil violations of the law related to the government's TARP program have resulted in the recovery of more than $1.48 billion as of December 31, 2014, according to an announcement from SIGTARP.

The latest National Association of Homebuilders/First American Leading Markets Index (NAHB/LMI) released Thursday found that markets in 63 out of 351 metropolitan areas nationwide (about 18 percent) matched or exceeded their normal levels of economic and housing activity in Q4 2014, according to an announcement from NAHB.

Weeks ahead of the anticipated release of Ocwen's fourth-quarter earnings report, CEO Ron Faris has issued a notice that the company expects to see a loss based on mounting regulatory pressures, expenses, and a recent ratings downgrade by a major credit ratings agency.

Continued labor market improvements may bode well for the housing market for the coming year, since housing relies on steady nationwide employment to flourish, according to some economists' predictions. The national unemployment rate continues to drop – December's rate of 5.4 percent is a decline of 1.1 percentage points from the same month a year earlier.

Investigators from HUD's Office of Inspector General (HUD OIG) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Wednesday that some senior officials at HUD violated federal law and obstructed investigators' efforts to uncover wrongdoing.

In Denver, Titan Lenders Corp., a firm specializing in mortgage services, is headed into 2015 strong after closing the book on one of its best years yet, according to an announcement.

LenderLive Network, a national mortgage services provider headquartered in Colorado, introduced on Tuesday the two newest regional account executives for its Correspondent Lending division: Andrew Lion and Wendy Lovett.

As stakeholders continue to battle with the government over what they say should be their share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's profits, the regulator in charge of overseeing the two GSEs says he's not in a position to act on that situation. Watt says he has no plans to change is the GSEs' current bailout agreement with the government, which has allowed the Treasury Department to sweep nearly all of their profits since August 2012.