News

MERSCORP Holdings, Inc. has won yet another victory in a long list of lawsuits filed against the company. The company recently announced that the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed that Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) had the authority to assign a mortgage for foreclosure.

RealtyTrac,a real estate online marketplace and provider of housing data, announced the hiring of real estate and technology specialist Samantha Tino as VP of sales for the RealtyTrac Network.

California officials on Wednesday arrested five individuals who allegedly ran a statewide housing scheme involving the fraudulent seizure of at least 23 homes in nine counties. Allegedly, since 2006, the group--which includes two attorneys and one individual who remains at large--unlawfully used the state's adverse possession laws to obtain titles on properties they had identified as abandoned.

Bank of America brought in $3.4 billion in profits last quarter, beating out the previous quarter's $2.5 billion and the previous year's $732 million. The bank says it's entering the new year with one of the strongest balance sheets in its history, largely the result of cost-cutting and declining credit losses. Provisions for credit losses have fallen from $2.2 billion to $336 million over the past year.

January has been a busy month for Stewart. Two key executives have been lauded for their accomplishments, and the company has added another power hitter to the team. Stewart Information Services Corp.'s chief economist Dr. Ted C. Jones has been recognized in the 2013 Swanepoel Power 200 list.

Prospect Mortgage, LLC is expanding its footprint. The Dallas-based lending company has acquired certain assets of the retail mortgage branch operations of Excel Mortgage Servicing, Inc. Impac Mortgage in four Western states.

It stands to reason that if real estate professionals believe homeownership is a good idea, then they would practice what they preach and own their own homes instead of renting. But do they? Trulia's chief economist, Jed Kolko, has crunched the numbers from Census data between 2007 and 2012, and it turns out, the answer is a resounding """"yes.""""

Congressman Bill Foster of Illinois introduced legislation on Tuesday that would extend the mortgage debt tax exemption that's been in place since 2007 for another two years. The Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 gives tax-exempt status to debt that is reduced or cancelled through a loan modification or forgiven through a foreclosure or short sale. This tax relief, however, expired on December 31, 2013.

As expected, weak origination volume took its toll on earnings at two of the nation's largest mortgage lenders. JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo both released their Q4 2013 results on Tuesday, kicking off the earnings season. At JPMorgan, mortgage originations were down 42 percent from the previous quarter; Wells Fargo reported a 37 percent quarterly decline in new mortgage activity.

In its continued efforts to aide in stabilizing the market, Fannie Mae announced on Tuesday that it priced its second credit risk sharing transaction under the Connecticut Avenue Securities (C-deals) series. The series 2014-C01 transaction provides an additional avenue to manage the credit risk on the company's guaranty book of business.