TitleVest, a Manhattan-based provider of title insurance and related real estate services, announced today the hire of Michael Birajiclian, Esq. as managing director of business development. Over the past decade, Birajiclian has closed more than $8 billion in real estate transactions in positions held at several leading investment banks, including Bank of America, Nomura Credit & Capital, and Morgan Stanley, and most recently as an attorney in private practice at Stark, Amron & Liner, LLP.

The national unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent in February, the highest the stat has reached in a quarter century. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that 651,000 workers lost their jobs last month.

Many have argued that Countrywide Financial and its top executives carry a large portion of the blame for the current state of the housing market and the vast amounts of bad loans that have now infiltrated the nation’s financial system.

Los Angeles-based law firm Rutter Hobbs & Davidoff Inc. has announced the launch of the firm’s Business Reorganization & Capital Recovery Services group. This taskforce of legal experts will address the wide-ranging challenges companies and real estate businesses are facing amidst today’s troubled economy.

McLean, Virgina-based mortgage giant Freddie Mac has hired a team of lawyers to investigate the company’s own lobbying efforts. Under scrutiny is a campaign that tallied $2 billion, and according to an Associated Press:http://www.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation on Thursday that will allow bankruptcy judges to reduce the principal amount of mortgage loans. The proposed law has received stiff opposition from the banking and mortgage industries, but the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers have been unrelenting in pushing the so-called cramdown legislation through Congress.

According to a report issued Wednesday by two nonprofit organizations, the financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial collapse.

Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) on Thursday, showing increases in mortgage interest rates for all types of loan products covered in the study. Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s VP and chief economist, attributed the rise in mortgage rates to higher bond yields this week, amid reports of continuing record jobless claims and a downward revision of economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Mortgage Delinquency Survey for 2008 on Thursday, which showed that Americans fell behind on their mortgages and banks seized homes at a record pace in the fourth quarter of last year.

Foreclosure.com, based on Boca Raton, Florida, announced that it has doubled the size of its agent services department in response to high volume and demand for programs that help connect buyers and sellers in the distressed real estate marketplace.