A real estate agent was found dead Saturday night inside a bank-owned home in Westchester, a community outside of Los Angeles. The body of Ricardo Contreras, 45, of Lakewood, California, was discovered by another real estate agent attempting to show the foreclosed home.

The New York-based alternative asset management firm Fortress Investment Group LLC announced over the weekend that Daniel H. Mudd, Fannie Mae’s former chief, will take the helm at Fortress as the company’s new CEO.

Robert J. Hopp & Associates, LLC, a regional provider of legal, default, disposition, and title services headquartered in Denver, Colorado, has announced the addition of four associate attorneys to its legal team: Boyd Rolfson, Stacy Sutherland, Jennifer Trachte, and Brittany Wood.

Community banks are continuing to fold under the pressures of the nation’s economic crisis. Four banks – two in California, one in Georgia, and one in South Dakota – were shut down by their banking regulators on Friday.

Bensalem, Pennsylvania-based ISGN, a provider of core servicing, default management, and origination services and products, has unveiled a new loss mitigation technology that will be available on a pay-per-closed-loan basis.

Herb Allison, the Treasury’s new assistant secretary for financial stability and former CEO of Fannie Mae, told lawmakers at a Senate Banking Committee hearing last week that the administration is considering another housing proposal that would require lenders to allow previous homeowners to stay in their foreclosed homes as renters.

Wells Fargo says in the first half of 2009, through lower rates, refinances, and modifications, it alone has helped nearly one million American homeowners lower their mortgage payments or restructure their mortgage.

Purchasers of single-family foreclosed homes offered through Freddie Mac’s HomeSteps division will receive a comprehensive two-year home warranty paid for by Freddie Mac, the company announced Monday.

The American Securitization Forum (ASF) has proposed a new set of guidelines that would shift more of the risk associated with residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) to the originating lenders and the investment firms that package the loans for sale to the secondary market.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and prosecutors in 19 states have filed 189 legal actions against companies and individuals they say are carrying out loan modification scams and deceptively marketing foreclosure rescue services.