News

“Ongoing disruptive weather patterns in much of the U.S. inhibited home shopping,” said National Association of Realtor’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun. The analysis came in the wake of the release of NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, noting pending sales edged up .1 percent to 95 last month. Compared to January 2013, pending sales were down 9.0 percent.

Woodward Asset Capital, a developer of technology for the national real estate and mortgage servicing industries, announced in a press release it has acquired Homesource Realtors, a Michigan-based real estate brokerage.

Freddie Mac released on Thursday its quarterly earnings report for the end of 2013, revealing yet another strong quarter—the ninth straight. Net income at the enterprise totaled $8.6 billion in Q4. For all of 2013, Freddie Mac reported providing liquidity for 1.6 million refinances; 515,000 home purchases; and 388,000 multifamily rental units.

Foreclosure inventory in January was down by one-third over the year, although completed foreclosures ticked up over the month, according to CoreLogic’s National Foreclosure Report released Thursday. Demonstrating an 11.8 percent increase over the month, completed foreclosures totaled 48,000 in January.

According to a report from The Charlotte Observer, Wells Fargo is laying off another 700 mortgage workers across the country. The bank announced Thursday the layoffs would affect mortgage processors and underwriters the hardest. What is causing the lending giant to cut jobs nationwide?

RealtyTrac released its January 2014 Residential & Foreclosure Sales Report on Thursday, revealing institutional investors made up 5.2 percent of all U.S. residential property sales in January. Institutional investor sales are down from 7.9 percent in December, and down 8.2 percent from January, 2013.

The Data and Analytics division of Black Knight Financial Services issued their "First Look" at January mortgage performance data, noting foreclosure inventory has hit a new post-crisis low. The percentage of foreclosures from the inventory of loans, 2.35 percent, is the lowest since November, 2008.

The Walton Group of Companies, a family-owned real estate investment group in Texas, announced Tuesday John Vick has been named Regional President of the South Central region for Walton Development and Management (WDM). Vick returns to his home state of Texas, where he will join WDM’s team of land planners, engineers, and project managers in Dallas and Austin.

A Florida man was sentenced on Tuesday to serve 12 months and one day in prison for defrauding thousands of homeowners in a $4 million nationwide home loan modification scheme. Vernell Burris Jr. was sentenced to prison along with two other previously sentenced co-defendants, Christopher Godfrey and Dennis Fischer, in a continuing SIGTARP case.

For Richard Corday, the equation is simple: In the Land of the Free and the home of the free market, American citizens should be as informed about and capable of self-governance in their personal finances as they are in the democratic process, especially when it comes to borrowing for a mortgage.