News

The finance arm of General Electric Co. is making plans to shrink its $80 billion commercial real estate portfolio by half. GE Capital, at one time, accounted for nearly half of its parent company's overall income, but the financial services company whose primary focus has been on commercial lending and leasing in the Americas, continues to struggle under the trials and tribulations of the nation's credit crisis and the real estate downturn.

Technology provider Pruvan unveiled a new photo management solution Monday that the company says will revolutionize the field services industry. The technology is designed to make the work order management process faster and more seamless for property preservation specialists and asset managers by allowing field crews to upload photos from the job site and document the work they've done, virtually in real time. Field Asset Services is the first user of the technology and the company says the results have proven to be a ""game-changer.""

Default Mitigation Management LLC recently announced the newest user of its loss mitigation Web Portal -- Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Delaware Valley, a housing counseling and mediation provider for borrowers in the Philadelphia and greater Delaware Valley area.

In what seems to be becoming a trend, delinquencies for U.S. Alt-A and subprime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) declined once again in May, Fitch Ratings reported Monday. While the month-to-month decreases in past due Alt-A and subprime loans were encouraging, Fitch said the improvements were tempered by a bounce back in roll rates. The ratings agency also notes that more than a third of the performing subprime loans backing mortgage bonds have already been modified and have a ""substantial"" risk of re-default.

After rising for two months straight, forward-looking confidence in the U.S. real estate market fell in May, according to the latest Real Estate Confidence Index (RECI) released by Point2 Technologies. The national RECI, which tracks the market sentiments of more than 50,000 real estate professionals across the country, slipped 1.72 percent in May compared to the previous month. Primary concerns cited for the negative outlook were the end of the homebuyer tax credit, ""shadow inventory,"" and the risk of rising interest rates.

According to QualityFirst Real Estate, a San Diego-based firm that specializes in REO, local market conditions are primed for a buying spree of bank owned and short sale properties. QualityFirst says property values there are headed back up and foreclosure numbers are dropping, with many real estate professionals now operating under the premise that the economy is finally beginning to turn around - the firm says all this makes now the time for homebuyers to pursue short sale and REO deals.

Last week marked the launch of a new national organization devoted exclusively to residential mortgage compliance - the Association of Residential Mortgage Compliance Professionals (ARMCP). Membership in the non-profit group is free at this time. The association stipulates that members must be industry participants who have an actual practice or institutional responsibilities involving residential mortgage compliance.

Banks in Illinois, Mississippi, and Nebraska were closed by their regulators over the weekend, bringing the number of failed FDIC-insured institutions to 81 for the year. The FDIC was unable to find a buyer for the Illinois bank that went under. Illinois has now had 12 bank closings this year, trailing only Florida with 13.

It's no secret that investment in commercial property has contracted since its 2007 peak, when real estate values began to freefall and defaults began to soar. But with the retrenchment, a new study by Real Capital Analytics shows that new buyers have taken a more prominent role. Real Capital says new buyers accounted for just 15 percent of investment volume as capital poured into commercial real estate (CRE) three years ago. Now, that activity has almost doubled, with new buyers comprising nearly 30 percent of the sector's dealmaking.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has issued new guidelines for modifying VA-guaranteed home loans. The new procedures are effective immediately, and give servicers the authority to restructure distressed loans in accordance with the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) if other loss mitigation options have been exhausted. VA says it expects servicers to exert all reasonable efforts to assist veteran borrowers in retaining ownership of their homes or mitigating losses by pursuing alternatives to foreclosure.