REO

Prism Title & Closing Services recently announced the promotions of Angi Schuerman to business development and relationship manager and Karen McDonald to director of operations.

The nation's thrift industry posted profits of $1.82 billion in the first quarter of 2010. The Office of Thrift Supervision says the data indicates thrifts are stabilizing despite rising delinquencies and foreclosures. By definition, the thrift business involves taking deposits and originating home mortgages. The industry's non-current loans and repossessed real estate assets made up 3.27 percent of total holdings in Q1. Sixty-five percent of these troubled assets were residential mortgages, 27 percent were commercial real estate loans.

DebtX, a full-service loan sale advisor based in Boston, announced Monday that it will sell approximately $500 million of mostly commercial real estate (CRE) loans on behalf of three financial institutions. ""Sellers are moving aggressively to dispose of loans and benefit from stronger balance sheets,"" said Kingsley Greenland, DebtX CEO. ""Investors have an opportunity to buy a wide range of both performing and non-performing loans from these sales.""

REO asset management firm Green River Capital announced Monday that it has launched a company that will focus exclusively on short sale program management, Green River Financial (GRF). In response to growing market interest, the West Valley, Utah-based company is offering a pre-foreclosure short sale and deed-in-lieu program.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Monday that sales of previously owned homes rose 7.6 percent in April compared to March, reflecting a surge in activity as buyers sought to close deals ahead of the contract deadline for the federal homebuyer tax credit. Last month's numbers pushed the annual sales rate to 5.77 million units, up from a 5.36 million sales rate in March, and far exceeded analysts' expectations. They were projecting an increase, but somewhere between a 5.60 and 5.65 million-unit sales pace.

Liquidation and modification rates on Countrywide-serviced residential loans have edged higher in the past few months, with a larger percentage of mortgage restructurings encompassing principal forgiveness, according to a study just released by Barclays Capital. The research firm examined loans within residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) serviced by Countrywide, now Bank of America Home Loans, and found that while historically, the once-subprime leader claimed lower-than-average mod rates and long liquidation timelines, that has begun to turn around in the past few months.

Windermere Services of Northern California announced this week a partnership and merge of the Schubb Group, a three-office real estate brokerage specializing in REO properties. The Schubb Group operates out of Northern California offices in Pleasant Hill, Stockton, and Nice. Windermere also plans to launch a new default services division, which will be run out of the newly acquired business.

Real Estate Disposition, LLC (REDC), a national real estate auction firm headquartered in Irvine, California, announced the re-launch of its Auction.com Web site on Wednesday. The company says it has increased site content tenfold to support more than 500,000 unique monthly visitors.

National home prices increased by 1.7 percent in March 2010 compared to a year ago, according to CoreLogic. It marked the second straight month that CoreLogic has recorded annual gains in home prices, breaking a depreciation streak of more than three years. But the company warns that going into the summer months, price growth will quickly fade, and because of the inventory of distressed properties, CoreLogic expects home prices nationally to fall another 5 percent over the next 12 months.

As REO sales continue to increase -- according to the latest market report released by Zillow, REO sales made up 22.2 percent of U.S. home sales in March -- it is vital that lenders receive assistance in completing these transactions. In an effort to provide this assistance, MRG Document Technologies has launched an REO document package creation capability within its Miracle Online mortgage document preparation system.