News

For the second week in a row, mortgage rates continued to drop. Freddie Mac reported the rates of 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell to 4.95 percent (0.6 point), and Bankrate reporting a drop as well, from 5.16 percent last week to 5.09 percent (.45 point) this week. The 15-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 4.22 percent (0.7 point) this week, down from last week's 4.27 percent.

InHouse Inc., a California-based appraisal management company and provider of appraiser management technology for banks, lenders, servicers, credit unions, and other mortgage originators, now offers technology to manage multiple broker price opinion (BPO) vendors, including BPO companies, appraisers, and individual real estate agents and brokers, via its Connexions appraisal management system.

CoreLogic, a California-based provider of information, analytics, and business services, announced a new property report, the Listing and Market Activity Report, on Tuesday. The new report combines Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data with data from the CoreLogic public record database to provide a property's value, statistics on home price changes, foreclosure rates and ratios, as well as REO, foreclosure, and short sale indicators.

Three of the top five lenders use Point In Time for retro income verification, according to Equifax. Point In Time, a service that validates and documents a borrower's employment and income at the point of loan funding, is provided by Equifax's the Work Number, the largest source for employer employment and income verifications.

RealtyTrac has released its year-end 2010 foreclosure sales report, which shows that foreclosure homes accounted for nearly 26 percent of all U.S. residential sales last year, down from 29 percent of all sales in 2009 but up from 23 percent in 2008. The report also shows that the average sales price of these foreclosure properties was more than 28 percent below the average sales price of properties not in the foreclosure process - up from a 27 percent average discount in 2009 and 22 percent in 2008.

The technology firm RES.NET, Inc. is adding a Short Sale Portal to its Accelerated Management Platform (AMP) to provide mortgage servicers with tools to manage the short sale workflow process and connect with their borrowers and representing listing agents. The company is also launching a HomeOwner Portal, a secure application borrowers can go to in order to complete the short sale application and stay abreast of the status of their transaction through direct links with the servicer and listing agent.

Existing home sales rose again in January, for the third consecutive month, with the annual rate of 5.36 million marking the first time in seven months that sales activity was higher than a year earlier. Home sales are now 5.3 percent above the 5.09 million level in January 2010. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the improvement is good but could be better. The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $158,800 in January, down 3.7 percent from January 2010.

As the housing market struggles to get back on its feet, one element holding it back is the prevalence of fraud that increases in times of trouble. In December the CoreLogic Fraud Index revealed fraud losses for 2010 were estimated to be $11 billion. In the past week, the FBI has reported several convictions for mortgage fraud schemes all over the country. The agency says scams involving false promises and fraudulent sales pitches will continue to be a major focus.

Stewart Lender Services, a nationwide provider of centralized origination, loss mitigation, and REO asset solutions for mortgage lenders and servicers, has announced three key partnerships that will allow the company to expand its service offerings. Stewart is collaborating with Inglet Blair, LLC, Spectrum Field Services, and Field Asset Services.

Industry analysts have been sounding the alarm for months now about high volumes of commercial mortgages coming due over the next couple of years that borrowers may find difficult to refinance. But small businesses who find themselves in this situation are getting a helping hand from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The agency is rolling out a program that will allow small businesses to refinance their mortgage debt with a 504 loan.