California’s median home prices dipped by less than half a percentage point in March, according to a report released last week by housing market researcher MDA Data Quick. The company also noted that prices were similarly steady in January and February, perhaps a signal that the Golden State’s tumultuous housing market is leveling off.

Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative, a national alliance of mortgage bankers headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, announced on Monday that it has renewed its contract with Fannie Mae as a preferred investor.

Denver-based LenderLive Network Inc., a business process outsourcing and technology provider to the financial industry, has hired Paul Mooney as a national sales executive for LenderLive Settlement Services.

ProVest, a national process server management company for the mortgage default industry, announced on Monday the appointment of Les Zeiter as VP of operations for its Ohio office. In this position, Zeiter is responsible for maintaining customer relations with both current and potential clients and working with them to enhance efficiencies in service of process and loss mitigation initiatives.

Financial institutions face a number of regulatory changes in the coming months, some of the most notable of which are revisions to the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). Under the RESPA changes that take effect on January 1, 2010, HUD will require lenders to use a new Good Faith Estimate (GFE) and revised HUD settlement statement documents when underwriting a mortgage.

Walnut Creek, California-based PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. has made its secure online mortgage insurance ordering system available to all lenders. Previously, only lenders with delegated authority to underwrite the mortgage insurance themselves benefited from the electronic ordering process.

President Barack Obama announced his formal nomination of Fannie Mae’s chief executive Herb Allison to run the Treasury’s $700 billion bank rescue program on Friday. The official presidential nod was widely expected, although the nomination still requires confirmation from the Senate before Allison can take up his post in the Treasury office.

Great Basin Bank of Nevada, located in Elko, Nevada, and American Sterling Bank in Sugar Creek, Missouri, were shut down by regulators on Friday. These are the latest two community institutions to fold under the pressures of the nation’s fraught economy, and they bring the total number of 2009 bank failures to 25.

HOPE NOW’s ‘Bringing Hope Home’ bus tour made its way to Atlanta on Saturday, the second stop in a four-city journey to raise awareness about the foreclosure problems facing families in local communities and direct struggling homeowners to the resources available in their area that can help them avoid losing their homes.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Pro-Teck Valuation Services announced Monday that its home mortgage appraisal services are fully compliant with the new Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), which takes effect May 1.