Government

Wells Fargo Ventures, LLC, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Co., will exit from its eight mortgage joint ventures in mortgage lending due to "the current regulatory and market environment," the company announced Thursday.

In California, Prospect Mortgage, LLC named veteran mortgage finance professional Amy Brandt as COO.

President Obama embarked this week on a series of speeches designed to highlight the nation├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós continued economic stress. The immediate response and from both ends of the political spectrum was to decry his efforts as same-old, same-old. And, it is true the President has made this pitch before, emphasizing that the significant progress has made is not enough.

Linda B. Bammann will be resigning from Freddie Mac's board of directors at the end of July, the company announced.

In Colorado, Alliant National Title Insurance Company announced the hiring of Noemi Lopez as senior claims counsel.

The Department of Labor reported Thursday that advance initial unemployment figures for the week ending July 20 totaled 343,000, an increase of 7,000 over the previous week's revised tally. The four-week moving average for first-time claims was 345,250, a decline of 1,250 from the prior week.

Single-family home sales in Massachusetts rose for the second straight month in June, according to the latest report from the New England-based Warren Group.

Home sales and prices grew in June in the vast majority of counties covered by DataQuick's monthly Property Intelligence Report (PIR).

DocMagic, Inc. announced the appointment of Brian Yoder as director of software development.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales welled 8.3 percent in June to 497,000, according to a report from the Census Bureau and HUD. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected June sales to increase to 484,000 from May's originally reported 476,000. The median price of a new home fell 5.0 percent in June to $249,700, the third time the median price has dropped in the last four months. At the same time, May's median price was revised down to $262,800 from the originally reported $263,900.