The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 15, 2008 today. The new stats show mortgage applications declined only slightly from last week, but have now hit their lowest level since December 2000.

The Securities and Exchange Commission let its emergency order to protect shares of 19 financial companies from aggressive short-selling expire last week with no announcement of an extension. The SEC says it will not continue the rule barring such trades until new proposals against abusive short-selling across all U.

Barron’s, a weekly investor publication that provides market, industry, and company analyses to the financial community, released a report yesterday saying that the Treasury’s recapitalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is inevitable.

ServiceLink, a provider of origination and default services and the national mortgage services platform of Fidelity National Financial, announced enhancements to its title and settlement solution for reverse mortgage transactions today.

Although the federal government has taken steps to alleviate the housing contraction on a national scale, individual states, like California and most recently New York, are passing their own legislation to combat rising foreclosure numbers and sallow regional housing markets.

First American Default Technologies, a member of The First American Corporation family of companies and a provider of host-system integration technology to the mortgage default servicing industry, launched a new loss mitigation module as part of its VendorScape suite of solutions today.

CSC, a provider of technology-enabled solutions to the mortgage industry, introduced a new tool to expedite assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure last week. The Web-based service is called Borrower Inquiry and allows distressed homeowners to track the status of their requests for help from mortgage servicers.

RedVision, a provider of property research solutions, announced last week that it has bolstered it customer service center and its national expansion efforts with the addition of two key players. Margaret Colloton has been named VP of the company’s customer service operations and Justin Rhoades has been hired as head of its Arizona state team.

The government-insured share of mortgage applications more than tripled in the past year, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), released today. Of all mortgage applications accepted during the month of July, 29.

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has announced agreements with JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wachovia regarding allegations that the organizations made misrepresentations in their marketing and sales of auction-rate securities.