News

Due to a failed business acquisition with Venn Capital Group Holdings, LLC, Wealthbridge Mortgage will be closing its doors. The Oregon based Wealthbridge has already laid off 16 employees and announced it will lay off its remaining 109 employees in mid-October.

New data released by RealtyTrac Thursday shows that foreclosure and REO homes accounted for 24 percent of all residential sales during the second quarter. A total of 248,534 properties in default, scheduled for auction, or repossessed by the bank sold to third parties during the April to June timeframe. RealtyTrac says on average, these homes went for a discount of 26 percent. The second-quarter share of foreclosure sales is up nearly 5 percent from the previous quarter, but still down 20 percent compared to the second quarter of 2009.

Fannie Mae has enhanced its EarlyCheck technology service to help lenders identify eligibility or data issues with loans they plan on selling to the GSE in order to minimize the risk of repurchases. With EarlyCheck, lenders now have access to Fannie Mae delivery data checks at any point in the business process, allowing them to spot and correct potential underwriting errors earlier in the process - from prior to closing through to the pre-delivery stage.

The Treasury Department has instructed three of the nation's largest mortgage servicers to make changes to the way they solicit distressed borrowers for the government's loan modification program and evaluate applicants for eligibility. In Treasury's latest report card on the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America were called out by name as receiving sub-par grades in complying with the program's guidelines.

UnitedTech Lender Services (UTLS) celebrated the opening of a new office located in Las Colinas, Texas with a ribbon cutting ceremony earlier this month. The company chose to expand to Dallas County for the city's proximity to some of their largest clients.

It's no secret that the volume of distressed residential properties is weighing heavy on U.S. housing markets and prolonging any meaningful recovery. Of even greater concern is the industry's growing backlog of homes that need to be liquidated and resold but have yet to make their way to the market. Standard & Poor's has just released a new report in which it estimates that the principal balance of this shadow inventory now stands at $460 billion and will take the industry about 41 months to clear.

HUD has announced the availability of more than $5.1 million in grants for housing counseling training. HUD plans to fund eligible organizations to deliver full-spectrum training as part of the Obama administration's efforts to provide housing counseling to the nation's homeowners, buyers, and renters. The agency says right now, these counseling programs are critical to helping thousands of families avoid foreclosure, and it has increased the funding for such services by 36 percent in this year's HUD budget.

The volume of mortgage loan applications last week declined 0.8 percent, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported Wednesday. The drop was manufactured by a falloff in consumer demand for mortgage refinancing, despite the fact that interest rates again declined to new record-lows. For the week ending September 24, MBA's refinance index decreased 1.6 percent. The purchase index rose 2.4 percent.

The multifaceted and vast derivatives market can be thorny for even the sharpest of minds. But Udo Onwuachi, a former mortgage trader and authority on collateralized mortgage obligation (CMO) derivatives, says he aims to introduce agency CMO derivatives to a much broader audience an audience that may still be leery of mortgage bonds after the credit crisis fallout.

Nearly one-third of Americans are unlikely to qualify for a mortgage because their credit scores are too low, making homeownership out of reach for many, according to the online real estate marketplace Zillow. The company analyzed more than 25,000 home purchase requests during the first half of September and found that borrowers with credit scores under 620 were unlikely to receive even one loan quote, even if they offered a down payment of 15 to 25 percent.