News

In an environment where defaults continue to mount and home retention has become a mainstream issue, Florida-based Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS), a provider of integrated technology and services to the mortgage industry, has created RediMod, an end-to-end solution for streamlining the mass loan modification process and improving servicers’ ability to help delinquent and at-risk borrowers.

Four out of five metropolitan areas recorded lower home prices in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) quarterly survey released today. In addition, NAR said, existing-home sales fell from the second quarter in 32 states.

The debate between two federal officials — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Sheila Bair — over whether to use money from the $700 billion bailout fund to help at-risk homeowners avoid foreclosure took center stage when both regulators testified before the House Financial Services Committee today.

Single-family home prices in Rhode Island continued to deteriorate in September, with the median home price plunging 17 percent to $220,000 from $265,000 a year ago, according to the latest state report from The Warren Group.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office announced last week that it has secured a preliminary injunction against subprime lender Option One Mortgage Corp. and its parent company H&R Block Mortgage Corp.

The First American Corporation has developed a new reverse mortgage score to help servicers identify senior homeowner candidates for a government-insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM), who might otherwise face foreclosure.

Housing Predictor, which provides housing forecasts in 250 markets, has identified 10 markets where the regional economies are healthy and have strong potential for increasing prosperity. These housing markets have bucked the national trend in 2008 and avoided the subprime crisis, the consultancy says.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) proposed on Friday to spend $24 billion of the $700 billion bailout package to help 1.5 million households avoid foreclosure. This new plan is a mild deviation from the FDIC’s $40 billion incentive-based foreclosure plan put forth to Congress committee members in late October, under which the government would guarantee part of homeowners’ modified loans.

Single-family home sales in Connecticut dropped 5.3 percent in September from a year ago, bucking a 12-month trend of double-digit percentage declines, according to a new report from The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record and a provider of New England real estate data.

Integrated Asset Services LLC (IAS), an REO management and disposition company based in Denver, Colorado, released its IAS360 House Price Index for September 2008. The monthly report showed a 2.1 percent decline in house prices on a national level in September, with an annual decline of 13.