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IHS Global Insight took a closer look at the ""Show Me State"" as part of its ongoing analysis of 12 swing states.

The housing crises seems to have led Americans to take a less critical view of strategic default. According to a recent survey that polled 1,026 U.S. adults, 32 percent stated they believe homeowners should be able to strategically default without facing consequences. The online survey was conducted by JZ Analytics on behalf of ID Analytics.

After acquiring 94 single-family properties in Chicago, The Cogsville Group, LLC has selected FirstService Residential Realty Inc. to manage its rental properties.

Completed foreclosures continued their progressive decline, and foreclosure inventory fell to its lowest level since April 2010, CoreLogic reported Thursday. In August 2012, 57,000 homes were lost to foreclosure, down from 58,000 in July and 75,000 a year ago. The yearly decrease represents a 24 percent decline. While the national numbers are down, certain states are still seeing a high number of foreclosures, with five states accounting for 48.1 percent of all completed foreclosures.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance edged up by 4,000 to 367,000 for the week ended September 29, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The previous week's report was revised upward to 363,000 first-time claims from the originally reported 359,000.

When the September employment situation report is released Friday, one number will loom large, and it won't be the number of new payroll jobs, expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg to be about 113,000, and it won't be the unemployment rate, expected to be 8.1 percent. Instead, it will be 386,000, which is the number of jobs added to the nation's payrolls, not by employers, but by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its annual ""benchmarking"" of payroll data.

Commercial mortgage-backed security (CMBS) delinquencies have posted substantial declines over the past two months, according to Trepp. After falling 21 basis points in August, delinquencies decreased another 14 basis points in September, bringing the delinquency rate below 10 percent, just barely. The CMBS delinquency rate is now 9.99 percent, according to Trepp, and the agency predicts the rate should continue to decline over the next few months.

The real estate software provider eBrokerHouse is making its transaction management and offer submission platform available for free to real estate agents. The free version of eBrokerHouse has all the capabilities to work for the vast majority of agents. High-volume list agents and teams that need more flexibility can easily upgrade to a paid membership and remove the few restrictions of the free account.

In her first monthly report as California Monitor, Katherine Porter described the servicers' efforts to reform their practices before the October 2 deadline outlined in the national mortgage settlement. Porter's first evaluation examined the practice of dual tracking. The companies in the settlement were given 180 days to reform their dual tracking procedures, in addition to more than 300 additional servicing standard requirements.

Ocwen Financial Corporation will purchase Homeward Residential Holdings, Inc. for $750 million, Ocwen announced Wednesday in a release. Ocwen will buy the Dallas-based servicer and originator from private equity firm WL Ross & Co. The breakdown for the transaction includes $588 million in cash and $162 million in Ocwen convertible preferred stock.