REO

San Diego-based New Vista Asset Management, a nationwide provider of REO asset management services, announced Tuesday that foreclosure industry veteran Ivan Choi is the company's new national default sales executive. Choi has 15 years' experience in the foreclosure and mortgage banking market. He previously held executive positions with Prospect Mortgage and Bank of America.

CoreLogic reports that home prices in the United States increased in June, marking the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year gains in residential property values. But the company says price appreciation has slowed considerably--a sign that we're likely in for further declines heading into the fall season. According to CoreLogic, national home prices, including distressed sales, increased by 1.4 percent in June compared to a year earlier. That follows a 3.7 percent jump in May. CoreLogic says June's 2.3 percentage point deceleration from May is ""very large by historical standards.""

RealtyTrac's foreclosure, property, loan, and home sales data is now available via Moody's Analytics, an independent provider of economic forecasting and credit risk services. By aggregating RealtyTrac's proprietary foreclosure information and combining it with local economic and house price measures, Moody's says banks, asset managers, and federal and local governments are given insight into all stages of the foreclosure process.

Foreclosure activity in California was again mixed last month, according to ForeclosureRadar. The company's latest report shows that foreclosure filings and cancellations dropped in July after rising the month before, while foreclosure sales rose. But even with the wrong indicators heading upward and a large ""shadow inventory"" of properties in default, ForeclosureRadar says it doesn't expect the foreclosure picture in the Golden State to worsen any time soon, namely because it currently takes lenders 226 days to complete the process.

RealtyTrac reported Thursday that foreclosure filings increased four percent in July -- an abrupt departure from the previous three months, which saw consecutive declines in foreclosure activity. However, even with filings on a total of 325,229 properties during the month, July's numbers represented a 10 percent decrease compared to July 2009. It was the 17th consecutive month with a foreclosure activity total exceeding 300,000. One in every 397 U.S. homes received a filing in July.

Vendor Resource Management (VRM) announced Joe Morrow has been promoted from operations director to senior director of strategic planning for the company. As senior director of strategic planning, Morrow is responsible for the development, implementation and subsequent measurements of performance of VRM's default servicing strategies.

Fannie Mae's second-quarter losses narrowed considerably from the demoralizing financials of the past several years that found the nation's largest mortgage financier underwater itself in a sea of red ink. The GSE reported Thursday that it lost $1.2 billion last quarter. It was Fannie's smallest loss in more than three years. The company also said it needs far less money from taxpayers this quarter - $1.5 billion. The company acquired 68,838 single-family REOs through foreclosure in Q2, and its seriously delinquent rate dropped to 4.99 percent.

The volume of commercial real estate assets with outstanding distress grew by $6.3 billion in June, but it was the smallest monthly increase since late 2008, according to the research firm Real Capital Analytics. While the slow-down in the growth rate can be attributed in part to the lack of large portfolios to fall into trouble during the month, the analysts at Real Capital say they are also seeing a marked increase in workout activity by lenders.

The nation's REO stock fell 0.6 percent in May to 524,000 properties, according to Barclays Capital. In addition, the research firm estimates that housing's shadow inventory - which Barclays defines as the supply of homes nearing REO status - declined by 2.3 percent to 4.02 million properties. A separate study released by Clear Capital supports the assumption that indeed, there are fewer REOs influencing the market. The company says the percentage of bank-owned homes sold as compared to all properties sold dropped 22.7 percent during the May-July period.

Fannie Mae has issued a media bulletin with details of a property auction in South Florida, a market that continues to struggle with high numbers of home repossessions and a backlog of foreclosure cases. The nation's largest mortgage company will auction off 100 Fannie Mae-owned REOs in Florida's Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties on August 14th.