The U.S. housing market may be starting to taper off in comparison to the strong growth of the last several months, according to a new survey by Campbell/Inside Mortgage Financing HousingPulse. The survey involves approximately 2,000 real estate agents nationwide, and data gathered showed a slower growth rate in home sales among first-time buyers, current homeowners, and investors.

Butler and Hosch has named Michelle Mierzwa as national managing attorney for California and Ed Hill as SVP of client development. Mierzwa most recently served as general counsel at Cal-Western and has more than 10 years of experience as a litigation and appellate attorney specializing in the representation of residential finance lenders, servicers, investors, and trustees.

W.J. Bradley Mortgage Capital announced that it has been named to Inc. Magazine’s seventh annual 500|5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. Of those companies listed that generated in excess of $200M in revenue for 2012, W.J. Bradley ranked as the third fastest-growing financial services firm in the United States.

The housing recovery continues to gather momentum, indicating an ongoing economic upswing according to the Housing Scorecard released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury today. Improving market indicators include home prices, purchases of new homes, and sales of existing homes according to the report.

The median sale price for a distressed residential property was $116,000, up one percent from a month ago but down three percent from a year ago, according to the August 2013 U.S. Residential Foreclosure and Sales Report released Thursday by RealtyTrac.

The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) has issued a white paper detailing steps the government should consider in GSE reform that would support small, independent banks and their role in the housing market. Mortgage lending has always been an important service of community banks, which hold nearly 20 percent of the market and make a disproportionately large share of loans to low and moderate income borrowers and a larger share of loans for home purchases than other lenders,"""" said Ron Haynie, SVP of mortgage finance policy at ICBA.

Wingspan Portfolio Advisors has agreed to acquire a customer service operations center in Monroe, Louisiana, from JP Morgan Chase. The acquisition will include 400 employees and will bring Wingspan to more than 2,000 employees nationwide. The new center will handle inbound and outbound customer service calls and electronic communication.

Competition for homes decreased in August for the fifth month in a row according to data compiled by the Redfin Research Center. The report concludes that the diminishing number of bidding wars indicates that the housing market is shifting away from one that favors sellers toward a more balanced environment.

The housing market has lost some of its momentum recently according to a new study by the Redfin Research Center. Pent-up demand and low mortgage rates contributed to a robust real estate market since the beginning of the year, but higher prices and higher rates have diminished demand in recent months. The company predicts mortgage rates will play a central role in determining housing prices moving forward.

Credit Plus announced Friday that the company is now a certified reseller of Equifax Verification Services (EVS). EVS offers online employment verification from Equifax's The Work Number database. [IMAGE] [COLUMN_BREAK] Lenders today operate in an environment of heightened regulation making the need to have reliable verification processes from a credentialed source more important than ever, said Michael Kuentz, verification services leader at Equifax.