News

A judge in St. George, Utah has issued a preliminary injunction stopping all foreclosure sales in the state by Bank of America and its subsidiary ReconTrust. The decision, by 5th District Court Judge James L. Shumate, was based on the grounds that the nation's largest mortgage servicer and its related companies are not registered to do business in Utah. The court order puts a temporary freeze on all trustee sales of homes foreclosed by BofA, and if made permanent, it could affect thousands of Utah borrowers facing foreclosure.

Clayton Holdings LLC announced Tuesday that it has appointed Brian R. Clark as senior managing director and business development officer for its commercial real estate (CRE) business. In his new position, Clark will work with Clayton's CRE team, headed by Ed Robertson, to help financial institutions, CRE owners, and investors with portfolio and property valuation services as well as strategy development.

Equator has initiated 200,000 short sale transactions through its technology platform since the system was first launched just seven months ago. Another 15,000 short sales have been initiated on the Equator platform that conform to the guidelines of the federal government's Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program.

Countdown To Buy, an online real estate marketplace, announced Tuesday that it has entered its 19th state, with foreclosed residential properties now featured from Florida. In addition the company announced that it has received a new group of foreclosed properties located in Maryland and Hawaii from an existing client.

As foreclosures continue to flood the market, lenders are becoming overwhelmed with repossessed properties that may stay vacant or unfinished for months or years, making them susceptible to various types of damage. To avoid this risk, some lenders are seeking to maximize the value of their REO assets. In an effort to help lenders with this process, Aon Risk Services, the risk management and insurance brokerage business of Chicago-based Aon Corporation, has launched the Comprehensive Asset Maximization program.

Home prices nationally bumped up 0.9 percent in April, according to new data from Integrated Asset Services (IAS). That follows a 1.1 percent monthly gain in March -- the first time in eight months that IAS' home price benchmark inched into positive territory. But even with April's increase, IAS says home prices nationally are 23.9 percent below the peak hit in July of 2007, and with market pressure coming from the expiration of the tax credit and the industry's shadow inventory, IAS says even the recent improvements may be fleeting.

Experian recently announced that its CreditHorizons for Securities offering, which delivers Experian's consumer credit information for non-agency mortgage-backed security deals, now offers the ability to link consumer credit data to loan-level data through technology provider Lewtan's private-label deal library, ABSNet Loan. The company said this added capability expands the offering to a broader base of non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities investors.

As part of plans to expand its data offerings to consumers through key partners, CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, California-based provider of information, analytics, and business services, announced Tuesday that it will provide foreclosure data and property information to the Yahoo! Real Estate foreclosure service. The company said this partnership will enhance Yahoo! Real Estate's foreclosure offerings by providing access to listings of properties at various stages of foreclosure or REO.

Mortgage fraud risk is on the rise. According to the quarterly Mortgage Fraud Risk Report released Tuesday by Interthinx, overall mortgage fraud risk in the first quarter of 2010 jumped 4 percent from the previous quarter and was 11 percent higher than the same quarter a year ago. The quarter-to-quarter surge brought the fraud risk index to a value of 151. This, Interthinx said, is the first time since 2004 that the index has exceeded 150.

Investment sage Warren Buffet told the federal commission investigating the causes of the financial crisis that finger-pointing at the big three credit ratings agencies should be directed elsewhere. The ratings industry has come under heavy fire from lawmakers and regulators for assigning top credit grades to mortgage-backed bonds that later turned out to be lemons. But in his testimony, Warren said he's ""much more inclined"" to come down hardest on the banks' CEOs. He says the ratings agencies made the same mistake that 300 million other Americans made.