Two lawyers with Washington, D.C.-based Patton Boggs, LLP, a law firm specializing in public policy, litigation and business, are verbal in their belief that the arrest of two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers is only the beginning of what is to become a tsunami of subprime and securities-related investigations and lawsuits.

Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc. said in a filing with the Texas Workforce Commission last week that the company is laying off 50 staff members at its location in Fort Worth, Texas. In the filing, Saxon does not specify which positions will be impacted, but the company does say the layoffs will impact a branch located on the 4700 block of Mercantile Drive in Fort Worth.

Titanium Solutions, Inc., a company that contacts and consults homeowners for mortgage servicers, has named Alice Radgowski, Eric Fleisher and Robert Thomson customer relations managers. Titanium says the three appointees will help the company bridge the communication gap between mortgage servicers and homeowners across the United States by managing existing relationships and developing relationships with new customers.

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) announced this week that six more states—Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Vermont—have signed on to use the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS), which is a web-centered registry that allows state-licensed lenders, brokers and loan officers to apply for a license or update a license online.

A few short months after Integrated Mortgage Solutions (IMS) President Cheryl Lang conceptualized the idea of starting a Web site to help pets left behind in foreclosures, her new nonprofit Web site No Paws Left Behind (www.

A new report titled The State of the Nation’s Housing Market, which was composed by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, concluded Monday that the market will rebound eventually, but it will take some time with housing starts slowing, demand lagging and tighter credit conditions keeping borrowers out of the market.

An onslaught of delinquencies and foreclosures in the mortgage lending sector has prompted information technology solutions provider Fiserv, Inc);/*1213801531093*/. to unveil its new Predictive Risk Index Score Modeling (PRISM) and Home Retention Solutions tools.

The state of Massachusetts continues to deal with lackluster single-family home sales, but a new report from publisher and real estate data provider The Warren Group concludes that the state’s monthly decline in home sales is getting smaller each month.

The investment banking division at Citigroup Inc. is about to be impacted by a series of planned job cuts, according to a news report from MarketWatch, which quoted the Wall Street Journal as a source.

Washington Mutual, Inc. (WaMu) announced Friday that as part of its strategic plan to return the company to profitability, the banking giant is cutting 1,200 positions—all of which are located in California, Florida, Washington state, Illinois and Texas.