Secondary Market

HUD swore in a Virginia-based publisher with British credentials as deputy secretary Wednesday. Confirmed by the Senate in late March, Maurice Jones stepped up to serve as the federal agency├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós second senior-most official. Jones arrives at his new position with considerable credentials. Graduating from Hampden-Sydney College, he snagged a Rhodes scholarship to study and later pick up a degree from the University of Oxford. He later graduated from the University of Virginia with a juris doctor.

In Rockland County, New York, Provident Bank is welcoming a new leader for its commercial banking team. The company, a subsidiary of Provident New York Bancorp, recently announced Marianne McGoldrick as the firm's senior managing director of commercial banking. In her new role for Provident Bank, McGoldrick will handle team leadership for building and cultivating commercial relationships. Prior to joining the company, McGoldrick served as the vice president and senior relationship manager for HSBC's middle market portfolio in the Hudson Valley region.

Rolling out a new online platform for real estate agents, Zillow, Inc., recently announced the launch of Agent Hub. Zillow's tool will give users a place to find and manage information from the website in one location. Additionally, the CRM platform automatically saves leads and connections accrued via Zillow, allowing agents to make individual notations and track high-priority contacts. Other benefits provided through Agent Hub include an analytics dashboard for monitoring listings and agent profiles and metrics.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland has released its spring Forefront report addressing the budget shortfalls throughout the U.S. Examining the risk that weakening public finances have on specific regions of the country, the Cleveland Fed is forecasting an uncertain future for the country's financial stability. The pension funds, which would deliver a shock to the broader financial system upon failure, appear more stable than previous reports have suggested. The bank evaluated bank capital requirements and tax system tradeoffs.

Housing permits surged another 4.5 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 747,000, the highest level since September 2008, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development reported jointly Tuesday. At the same time though, housing starts fell for the third time in the last four months to the lowest level since last October. March housing starts were reported at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 654,000 compared with 694,000 in February. Starts have been flat for the past three years.

Mortgage servicers would feel the pain if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalizes new rules it plans to propose this summer, according to Fitch Ratings. The ratings agency said in a statement that increased operational, compliance, and reporting expenses would take place if the rules take effect without any modification by the agency. The CFPB issued statements last week that signal its intentions to roll out with new proposals for rules that require more disclosure and transparency from servicers.

HUD signed off on debarment Monday for three South Florida loan officers and a Pittsburgh title agent following convictions that found the four had reaped $2.5 million in reverse mortgage fraud. In a statement, the federal agency said that juries of their peers convicted loan officers Marcos Echevarria, Louis Gendason, and John Incandela for their roles in systematically identifying, then pressuring elderly homeowners to trade up their home loans for reverse mortgages. The three reportedly also committed appraisal fraud by exaggerating values for the properties to seize more funds.

Touting its unique platform, Tradeweb Markets LLC has announced that the company recently reached a new benchmark, with more than $1 trillion in mortgage securities risk offset through the use of its trading technology. Tradeweb credits the company's new round-robin functionality of its programs for its success in the to-be announced-mortgage-backed securities (TBA-MBS) market.

Capitol Hill staffers are getting a chance to learn more about the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. The company recently announced that it will hold a free clinic for Congressional employees on Tuesday, April 17. The financial planning initiative from CFP is part of the 2012 Financial Literacy Day, which was organized by Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. Through the clinic, CFP will offer one-on-one personal finance consultation for participants. Attendees for the CFP event will gain advice on mortgages, debt management, and more.

Builder confidence fell three points in April to 25, matching the lowest point of the year, the National Association of Home Builders said Monday. The month-over-month decline was the first since last September. All three components of the index ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô current sales, sales six months out and buyer traffic ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô fell in April, with buyer traffic slipping to a four month low. The builder assessment of present home sales conditions dropped three points to 26. The outlook for home sales in the next six months also fell three points to 32.