News

Online marketplace exchange DebtX has announced its intention to sell 15,000 nonperforming residential loans for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as part of the agency's Single-Family Loan Sale (SFLS) program. The unpaid principal balance of the loans amounts to about $2.3 billion. The bid is scheduled for September 30. The loans will be sold in eight national pools ranging from $94.5 million to $804.5 million.

While the state of Alabama has been slow to recover economically since the recession officially ended five years ago, recovery of the housing market in the state has struggled along with the rest of the nation so far this year, according to a special commentary on Alabama's economic outlook by the Wells Fargo Economics Group for September 2014.

Indeed, 59 percent of households with incomes in the top tier reported being better off now than they were before, while only 36 percent of those in the lower tiers said the same. At the same time, 34 percent of the top-income households reported net income gains, while there were no net gains reported in the bottom two-thirds.

The watchdog that oversees the money given under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has called for more transparency from the U.S. Treasury Department. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew dated September 2, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Recovery Program (SIGTARP), Christy Romero, stated that a SIGTARP audit found evidence that the Treasury Department modified "some of the data reported by the financial institutions" in a report on how TARP funds were spent.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced on September 2 that it has published final guidelines for large financial institutions regarding the strengthening of governance and risk management practices for those institutions.

Mortgage Contracting Services (MCS), a Plano, Texas-based company that provides property inspection, property preservation, REO property maintenance, and valuation services to the financial industry nationwide, has appointed Bart R. Vincent as its chief financial officer.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) proposed a rule on September 2 that would amend financial institutions' requirements for application and membership retention in one of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks.

New business acquisitions totaled just less than $40 billion throughout the month, a nearly 12 percent rise over June and the strongest month for new business since last November, the mortgage giant reported.

Prominent mortgage banking attorney David Stein has joined Ohio-based law firm Bricker & Eckler as part of the firm's Consumer Financial Services and Litigation practice groups, Bricker announced recently.

Compared to a year prior, July's index was up 7.4 percent, barely down from 7.5 percent in June. As of the July report, the national HPI has risen year-over-year for 29 straight months.