Secondary Market

The industry has long been awaiting a replacement for the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC). On Friday, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued new Appraiser Independence Requirements to supplant the controversial HVCC, but both GSEs say the new appraiser rules, effective immediately, ""make no significant changes to core principles of the HVCC."" Fannie and Freddie say they will continue to review the appraisal rules to address issues relating to conflicts of interests and fee disclosure by appraisal management companies.

Jones Lang LaSalle, a financial and professional services firm specializing in real estate, has added two new executives to its real estate investment banking practice in Southern California and Houston. Bob Morey joins the firm's Los Angeles office as an EVP, and Ross Cannizaro was hired to the firm's Houston office as a VP.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued a new policy that outlines specific steps Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac servicers should take to identify and correct deficiencies in foreclosure paperwork. Evidence of servicing staff cutting corners to process foreclosures quickly has lawmakers, consumer advocates, and the entire general public calling for an immediate moratorium on foreclosures. But FHFA says bringing the process to a complete halt is not the answer.

The nation's poor employment picture has become one of the biggest impediments to a perceptible recovery in the mortgage markets - both for residential and commercial real estate. Job loss is now the primary trigger of default among struggling homeowners, and two separate research reports have uncovered a clear correlation between state-specific delinquency rates for commercial mortgages and unemployment levels. Nevada and Michigan rank among the highest for both, according to Fitch and Moody's.

Jones Lang LaSalle and its partner Real Estate Disposition, LLC (REDC) will host a hotel-only note and REO auction in November with more than $420 million in primarily non-performing notes. The companies say it will be the largest hotel-note auction in the United States. The 62 notes and two REO properties are from five special servicers and two regional banks. They are backed by full and select service hotels throughout 25 states and carry an average unpaid balance of $6.4 million.

Denver-based BlackBox Logic LLC has hired Scott Spittler as a senior applications developer and David Feiner as its new business strategy associate to support the company's recent growth. The data aggregation service company provides a database of loan-level collateral underlying non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) for investors, broker/dealers, and researchers.

Resolute Commercial Services, a Scottsdale-based real estate receivership company, has expanded east with the launch of its new Dallas location. The company says the new office will allow it to connect with the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) marketplace in Texas. Resolute Commercial Services focuses on markets in the Southwest United States but has experience nationally, offering its services to lenders, bankruptcy attorneys, developers, investors, and operators.

There was something for everyone in September when looking at the delinquency rate for loans held in commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), according to the research firm Trepp LLC. For commercial real estate bears, the fact that the rate once again set a record at 9.05 percent is a sign that the real estate crisis is not yet over in the commercial sector. The bulls, however, can point to the fact that the September increase in the delinquency rate is the second smallest for 2010.

Three major mortgage lenders have halted foreclosures in states where the process is handled through the court system after suspicions surfaced that employees did not follow legal procedures in preparing the required documentation. These paperwork problems are widely expected to draw out the already devastating foreclosure crisis in the affected areas. We've dug a little deeper to provide a list of the states where judicial foreclosures are the standard and that are most likely impacted by the foreclosure suspensions announced.

If governmental policy on foreclosure prevention does not change, 11.5 million borrowers are in danger of losing their homes, according to the analysts at Amherst Securities. That staggering figure equates to one out of every five borrowers - an astronomical 20 percent default rate. So how can the administration fix deficiencies in its loan modification program? Amherst analysts say the answer lies in cutting borrowers' principal balances and boosting housing demand, including opening up financing channels for investors.