Times are still tough in the real estate market, but the foreclosure market is looking up. While real estate prices, as a whole, have plummeted, prices of foreclosures in most states are going up.

The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to extend and expand the popular first-time homebuyer tax credit. The measure cleared the chamber with a vote of 98 to 0.

Pro Teck Valuation Services, a real estate valuation and risk solutions provider headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, announced Wednesday that Al Dalupan has joined the company as sales director, business development. Dalupan will be responsible for developing configured valuation solutions for mortgage banks, investors, lenders, and servicers from Pro Teck’s West Coast office.

Mortgage activity rebounded last week, after three straight weeks of waning, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) regular application survey released Wednesday.

GMAC Financial Services posted a $767 million loss for the third quarter of the year, compared to a net loss of $2.5 billion in the third quarter of 2008.

During American Land Title Association's(ALTA) annual convention, the board of governors named Mark Winter as the company's new president.

The Federal Reserve Wednesday voted to keep its key federal funds rate at 0 to 0.25 percent, even though economic activity has continued to pick up. The U.S. central bank indicated that it does not plan to raise the rate any time soon.

DepotPoint, Inc. announced Wednesday that James G. Jones, with 35 years of management experience in banking, consumer lending, payment processing, and related financial services, has joined the company's board of directors.

The risk retention provision of the House Financial Services' Committee's too-big-to-fail draft legislation will cripple the ability of community-based lenders to get secondary mortgage market funding and could have the ironic effect of further concentrating mortgage lending, the Community Mortgage Lenders of America and Community Mortgage Banking Project warned.

The Federal Reserve may be close to doing its first deal using an emergency credit facility to aid the sale of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), the Wall Street Journal reported.