Origination

Construction spending came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $883.3 billion January, a 2.1 percent monthly drop, the Census Bureau reported Friday. January's figure sits 7.1 percent above January 2012's spending estimate of $824.7 billion. December's estimate was revised upward to $902.6 billion from an originally reported $885.0 billion. Residential construction spending in the private sector was an estimated $304.6 billion, essentially flat month-over-month and up 22.0 percent year-over-year.

Caliber Funding LLC, a leading national residential mortgage lender headquartered in Dallas, Texas, announced the appointment of Tammy Richards as its SVP of operations. Richards has more than three decades of leadership experience in mortgage banking and extensive expertise in process improvement, quality management, technology, and leadership development.

The President has tried repeatedly to describe the impact of sequestration, a mandatory across-the-board cut in federal spending exempting only a small handful of social safety net programs. Despite those exemptions, a simple fact is that people will die as a result of these cuts, and lives could be changed irrevocably. The tragedy in this is not what might happen, although that's pretty severe long-term. The tragedy is both Democrats and Republicans have the means to fix it without having to resort to face-saving techniques.

Signs of expanding employment lifted the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment, according to a release issued Friday.

The Warren Group ranked Norcom Mortgage, a privately-owned mortgage lender, No. 1 for purchase lending in its recent Residential Mortgage MarketShare Report.

Guardian Real Estate Services LLC, a Portland, Oregon-based real estate management, investment, and development firm, announced last week a new commitment to social equity and diversity. Guardian's newly-announced commitment includes intentions to continue to promote diversity within the company.

Veros Real Estate Solutions, a collateral valuation technology firm based in Santa Ana, California, announced that its innovative valuation management platform, Sapphire, is now in use at Citizen's Equity First Credit Union (CEFCU).

Redfin's latest survey shows inventory shortage and rising prices are creating frustration for buyers trying to get in on the ground floor of the housing recovery.

Personal income dropped $505.5 billion, or 3.6 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) fell $491.4 billion, or 4.0 percent, in January, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported Friday. The income drop was steeper than the 2.1 percent decline economists had expected.

As the vocabulary surrounding the housing market switches from crisis to recovery, the NAHB has deep concerns about factors currently limiting the recovery.