News

Five new faces joined the board of directors at the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight on Monday. The five include former banking commissioners, politicians, attorneys, and academics, with Mississippi banking commissioner John Allison and former North Carolina Gov. James Holshouser notably joining the board.

California governor Edmund G. Brown signed into law a bill to help combat neighborhood blight, state attorney general Kamala Harris announced Monday. The bill-AB 2314-gives new homeowners additional time to fix any code violations in a home before local agencies move in to enforce the codes. It also extends indefinitely an existing provision that requires the owner of a foreclosed property to maintain the property.

A Virginia developer pled guilty Friday for his role in a massive bank fraud scheme that contributed to the collapse of Bank of the Commonwealth, officials announced Monday. Thomas E. Arney, 56, of Chesapeake, Virginia pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, unlawful monetary transactions, and making false statements, according to the statement.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley joined HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Brockton Mayor Linda M. Balzotti on Monday to tour an abandoned property in Brockton while raising awareness of foreclosure programs in the state.

Slow job creation and tight loan availability are hindering otherwise positive growth in commercial real estate, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported. While ""positive underlying fundamentals"" helped boost all of the major commercial real estate sectors, growth in some areas has been tempered by various issues, including job growth and shifts in demand.

The home improvement sector is seeing a lot more activity thanks to investors who are demanding homes in need of repair and homeowners who are tackling renovations they once avoided. According to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research report, renovation spending now accounts for about half of the construction expenditures market; historically, renovation spending has made up about a quarter of the market.

Credit quality of large loan commitments owned by domestic and foreign banks and nonbanks is on the rise for the third consecutive year, according to this year's Shared National Credits (SNC) Review. The review revealed that the volume of criticized loans (rated special mention, substandard, doubtful, or loss), while still historically high, fell to $295 billion, an 8.1 percent drop from 2011.

Bank of America announced Friday that it's donating up to 1,000 properties for injured military veterans and first responders. The properties will go to nonprofits and local government programs over a three-year period.

The California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) is not the only state-specific realtor group to be suspicious of FHFA's REO-to-rental initiative involving the bulk sale of REO inventory to institutional investors. The Florida Realtors stated that it has ""expressed concerns to The National Association of Realtors (NAR) about the issue and is requesting member feedback on how the FHFA bulk sales issue affects the Florida market.""

The Nevada Legislature's Interim Finance Committee passed an $11.7 million proposal to address mortgage fraud and the state's foreclosure crisis, attorney general Catherine Cortez Masto announced Friday. The proposal outlines the first part of a three-year, estimated $33.5 million dollar program that uses part of Nevada's share of the national mortgage settlement to help struggling homeowners.