News

As the nation’s housing crisis continues, millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure. Short sales are a viable option for homeowners in default to escape the threat of formal foreclosure. DepotPoint Inc.

First American CoreLogic, a member of The First American Corporation family of companies, today released the industry’s first state-level assessment of negative equity estimates for all single-family residential properties in the United States.

Fannie Mae announced this week that it will reinstate a requirement for homeownership counseling and education for first-time home buyers obtaining one of its MyCommunityMortgage loans, which give lenders a conforming alternative for low- and moderate-income borrowers, or a loan that relies on nontraditional credit to qualify.

The Federal Reserve recently approved new regulatory statutes requiring mortgage lenders to disclose to borrowers how much interest rates differ between prime mortgages and the higher-priced subprime loans offered to less-affluent borrowers.

Cyberhomes.com, an online real estate information site for consumers from Fidelity National Financial, a Fortune 500 provider of products, services and technology solutions to the financial and real estate industries, has been named one of the xTop Web sites of 2008x by PC Magazine.

The U.S. Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate for federal funds - the rate at which banks lend to each other overnight - by half a point to one percent on Wednesday. Other central banks around the world followed suit, also reducing rates or announcing that they were considering the move.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced that 400,000 homeowners have refinanced their mortgages with HUD’s affordable mortgage insurance program. Since expanding its refinance program in September 2007, HUD’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has helped more distressed homeowners keep their homes by utilizing FHA’s safe and affordable mortgage financing.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 133 into law last month. The bill, sponsored by the California Land Title Association (CLTA), goes into effect on January 1, 2009 and requires that title insurance sales people be registered with the state.

Colorado-based Mortgage Cadence Inc, a provider of enterprise lending solutions (ELS) for the financial services industry, recently announced that it is helping Senior Lending Network, a program of World Alliance Financial Corp and a recognized leader in reverse mortgages, automate back office workflow for its reverse lending and document preparation process.

Standard & Poor’s released its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices yesterday, reporting on data through August 2008. The study is considered one of the leading measures of U.S. home prices and shows continued broad based declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the country – a trend that prevailed throughout the first half of 2008 and has continued into the second half.