From Reuters.com

New York's highest court allowed the state on Tuesday to proceed with a lawsuit that had accused First American Corp and its eAppraiseIT unit of colluding with the former Washington Mutual Inc to fraudulently inflate home values.  The Court of Appeals rejected the defendants' argument that federal law precluded New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman from pursuing claims alleging fraud and violations of real estate appraisal independence rules. It upheld a June 2010 ruling by an intermediate state appeals court.  The eAppraiseIT unit is now part of CoreLogic Inc., which was created when First American split last year into that company and First American...

From Realtor.org

  BofA Reaches out to NAR on exiting its correspondent mortgage lending business. Rumors had been circulating for weeks that Bank of America (BoA) was planning to exit the correspondent mortgage lending business. On August 31, 2011, BoA confirmed this announcement and immediately requested a conference call with NAR Leadership. The purpose of the call was to provide information to NAR regarding BoA's decision to leave this line of business, outline itsnext steps and to assure NAR that the bank willcontinue to be a driving force in the home lending business. During the call, BoA confirmed that it will be exiting the correspondent mortgage lending business and intends t...

Inman.com

Visions of a statewide multiple listing service in California are a step closer to reality today, with the California Regional Multiple Listing Service Inc. (CRMLS) announcing a merger that will double its size and make it the nation's largest, with 68,000 participants and subscribers. CRMLS will merge with Anaheim-based SoCalMLS, itself one of the nation's largest with more than 33,000 members. The merger has been approved by the boards of directors of both MLSs, a spokeswoman for the California Association of Realtors said. San Dimas-based CRMLS was formed last year to carry on CAR's vision of building a statewide MLS. After CAR launched its calREDD MLS system in Nor...

LA Times

Despite near-record-low mortgage rates and the cheapest housing prices in eight years, home lending has slipped this year to the lowest level since 1997. The laggard loan market can be explained in part by the slow economy, numerous foreclosures and the proliferation of "underwater" loans, those that exceed the value of the properties they secure. ...

Bloomberg.com

Standard & Poor's lowered credit ratings on debt issued by U.S.-backed lenders including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, citing its own Aug. 5 downgrade of the federal government's AAA status. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee more than half of the almost $11 trillion in outstanding U.S. mortgage debt, were lowered one step from AAA to AA+, S&P said in a statement today. The downgrade reflects their “direct reliance on the U.S. government,” the ratings firm said. The two companies have operated under U.S. conservatorship since September 2008, when they were seized amid subprime mortgage losses that pushed them toward insolve...

WSJ.com

A founder of a website dedicated to direct sales of homes by their owners has sold his two-bedroom apartment for $2.15 million - with the help of a real estate broker and a standard 6 percent commission. Colby Sambrotto, a founder and former chief operating officer of ForeSalebyOwner.com, a large website for owner sales, spent six months trying to sell his condominium through online listings and classified ads, before turning over the listing of the 2,000-square-foot apartment to a broker at Bond New York in November. ...

CNN.com

Just as the housing market began to collapse near the end of 2007, a real estate agent in Bridgeport, Conn. asked Regions Bank if it would accept a $102,375 bid on a home that was underwater on its mortgage. Under the impression that this was the best offer on the home, Regions agreed to the short sale and released the mortgage it owned on the home. Later that same day, the new owner - an investment group owned by another real estate agent - resold the home to a buyer who had been lined up before the short sale transaction went through. The final sale price: $132,500, netting the seller a cool $30,000 -- a profit that should have gone to Regions. In this latest twist on short sale...

Housingwire.com

With the conforming loan limits expected to drop in October, the California Association of Realtorswarned of the impending harm to homeowners, while the only private-label securitizer left notified investors of more opportunities. The conforming loan limit determines the maximum mortgage amount the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy or guarantee. Without congressional action, the limit will drop to $625,500 from $729,950 for the majority of counties nationwide on Oct. 1. These three agencies currently fund 95% of the mortgage market, and housing finance reformers point to lowering this limit as a first step to usher in ...

Wall Street Journal

As home buyers cautiously re-enter the market, they're arming themselves with information found online far more than existed pre-housing crash. A record nine out of 10 house-hunters searched online last year, according to the National Association of Realtors; around 15 million people now visit 6-year-old listings site Trulia.com each month. But with this great migration online has come a new set of obstacles, including errors, out-of-date information, and properties that are listed on the web but aren't actually for sale all of which can add up to a handicap for buyers. "You're probably going to get exposed to inaccurate information," says H. Pike Oliver, executive dire...

LA Times

Three of the nation’s biggest banks have failed to live up to new performance guidelines under the Obama administration’s main foreclosure relief program and will be cut off from receiving financial incentives until they improve. Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo were found to be in need of “substantial improvement” under the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Plan, the administration said Thursday.   The new assessments are intended to compel the nation’s biggest mortgage servicers to improve their practices in the program, officials said. The foreclosure program has long been criticized as ineffective and f...

Freddie Mac

The average rate on 30-year loans dropped for the eighth consecutive week to a new 2011 low. Freddie Mac's weekly report on mortgage rates, released Thursday, showed the average rate at 4.49 percent, down from 4.55 percent a week earlier.  The average rate on teh 15-year, fixed mortgage also dropped, hitting a new 2011 low of 3.68 percent.  The trend has done little to improve the national housing market, however. Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist of Freddie Mac attributed the falling rates to weak economic data, highlighted by higher unemployment, and investor flight to safe Treasury notes.  Click here to read more at Freddie Mac. ...

fanniemae.com
WASHINGTON, DC — Fannie Mae today issued new standards for mortgage servicers regarding the management of delinquent loans, default prevention and foreclosure time frames under the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Servicing Alignment Initiative. The new standards, reinforced by new incentives and compensatory fees, require servicers to take a more consistent approach for homeowner communications, loan modifications and other workouts, and, when necessary, foreclosures. "These new standards give homeowners facing difficulty making their mortgage payments a clear, consistent process," said Jeff Hayward, Senior Vice President of Fannie Mae's National Servicing Org...

NY Times

Mortgage underwriting is tight, and home sellers are anxious to unload properties into a stagnant market.- it sounds as if it could be time to consider seller financing.  But such transactions remain rare, according to market participants, largely because of eroding home equity.  In seller financing, the owner of a property holds the mortgage for the buyer, usually for about five years, with a balloon payment after that. For individuals who don't need all the cash from a sale up front, the arrangement provides interest income, can delay or reduce capital-gains taxes, and gets a property off their hands.  Read more at NYTimes.com.  ...

Orange County Register

Luxury home salesman John McMonigle arrived in Southern California with $73 in his pocket in 1989, was grossing six figures by 1993 and, by 2006, was living in a 10,700-square-foot home valued at $10 million.  However, as with many agents in a tough market, McMonigle has tumbled from the peak and has now entered bankruptcy court.  McMonigle counted on closing $45 million per month in transactions, but couldn't keep up with mounting bills as he closed on $25 million to $35 million each month.  Read more at OCregister.com.  ...

Trulia.com

Real estate website Trulia.com launched a new crime maps feature designed to help consumers view crime data down to the neighborhood level in cities and metro areas across the United States.  The maps include many areas in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, although many spots in western parts of both counties are included on Orange County and Los Angeles County maps. Other blind spots include most areas of Chino, Chino Hills, Ontario, Upland and sections of Fontana.  According to Trulia.com, the maps are meant to offer "consumers hyper-local visibility into the good, bad and ugly dynamics of neighborhoods, enabling them to make better decisions about where to b...

From The New York Times

After months of painstaking talks, government authorities and five of the nation's biggest banks have agreed to a $26 billion settlement that could provide relief to nearly two million current and former American homeowners harmed by the bursting of the housing bubble, state and federal officials said in Washington on Thursday. It is part of a broad national settlement aimed at halting the housing market's downward slide and holding the banks accountable for foreclosure abuses. Under the plan, federal officials said Thursday, about $5 bilion will go in cash payments to states and federal authorities, $17 billion will be earmarked for homeowner relief, roughly $3 billion wi...