Delinquency and foreclosure rates continued to fall in the second quarter according to the Mortgage Metrics Report issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The Mortgage Metrics Report examined first-lien mortgages held by the top seven lenders in the United States, 52 percent of all residential mortgages.

The housing market is transitioning away from a rebound driven primarily by speculative forces to one where the underlying fundamentals will be much more important according to RealtyTrac. Over the past several years investor purchases have been the primary driver of the housing recovery, helping clear inventories of foreclosed and lender-owned properties and raising home prices.

Gerner & Kearns Co., L.P.A. announced recently that Michael R. Brinkman has joined the firm as a Senior Associate in its Litigation Department. Brinkman has nearly thirty years of experience practicing in the areas of foreclosure, eviction, real estate title and closing, and creditors' rights litigation. He received his JD from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law. He is licensed in Kentucky and will work out of the firm's Ft. Wright, Kentucky office.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has produced a pair of reports critical of the GSEs' efforts to collect billions of dollars of deficiencies from underwater homeowners who walked away from their mortgages.

HUD has delayed its prohibition of dual agency listings on short-sale properties according to a statement made this week by the National Association of Realtors(NAR). The HUD prohibition had first been made known in a July letter to mortgage servicers outlining new anti-fraud requirements for short sales and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure transactions.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed a series of sweeping reforms for that state’s force-placed insurance industry. The reforms come in the wake of an investigation that found numerous instances of abuse in the industry. Forced-placed insurance, which is insurance that a lien holder places on a property to cover a lapse of mortgage insurance, has drawn particular scrutiny from regulators because it has proven relatively easy to abuse.

Nationwide Title Clearing was honored at the Florida Business Journal's 2013 Florida's Fast 100 Awards Dinner on September 26, 2013, at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando.

Stephen G. Fields, 49, of Chesapeke, Virginia, was sentenced Monday to 17 years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit bank fraud, false entries in bank records, misapplication of bank funds, and false statements to a financial institution. Fields was executive vice president and senior commercial loan officer at Bank of the Commonwealth.

Single family rentals appear poised to become a significant class of long-term investment asset according to a new report by financial services firm Keefe, Bruyette, and Woods (KBW). The general increase in the rental market brought on by the recession, coupled with elements of recovery such as low inventory and strong re-sales suggest that broad institutional investment in single-family rental properties could emerge as an appealing market, attracting more players in the process.

When Ron D’Vari and Thomas Heinemann discussed the possible winding down of Government Supported Entities (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, one thing both agreed on was that possible reform of government’s role in the mortgage market needs to be preceded by sweeping changes in how loans are provided and capitalized.