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Joseph Cuomo, SVP and director of business development for online real estate marketplace Auction.com, has been recognized by Real Estate Forum magazine as one of the commercial real estate industry's Top 45 Under 40.

With recent predictions forecasting a falloff in home price increases over the next year, gains nevertheless continued at a strong pace in September, CoreLogic reported Tuesday in its monthly Home Price Index (HPI) report. The company recorded a 12 percent annual gain in its HPI (including distressed sales) for September, representing the 19th straight monthly year-over-year increase and bringing the index to its highest point since May 2008.

With Fannie Mae enacting tighter requirements on eligibility for loan purchases, experts at the Urban Institute's Housing Finance Policy Center are speaking out against the move. In a blog post on the Urban Institute's Metro Trends Blog site, the center's Laurie Goodman and Taz George said, "This change places yet another barrier in front of low- and moderate-income families, who are already facing a tightening credit box." They also commented that if Fannie Mae's intent was to reduce risk, "this was a crude way to accomplish it."

Homebuyers shook off their fears and returned to the market in force following the re-opening of the government in October, according to data presented by Redfin's Research Center. Despite reports of consumer confidence waning, Redfin customers seemed relatively unfazed. "My clients think the ugly showdown we saw in October is unlikely to happen again," reported Philip Gvinter, a Redfin agent based in Washington, D.C. "After putting their home search on hold during the shutdown, they are ready to get back out there."

Rob Katz has joined ReverseVision's team as EVP of sales, the company announced.

The majority of Americans are willing to sacrifice on living space if it means living closer to their most-visited spots, according to findings released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

National home prices are up 10.1 percent year-over-year in the second quarter, but price appreciation is expected to fall out of the double-digits, reaching 5.4 percent by the beginning of next year, according to the CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes. "Combined with increased housing construction, expected increases in existing inventories should restrain price appreciation even if demand remains strong," said David Stiff, principal economist for CoreLogic Case-Shiller.

In the aftermath of the federal government shutdown, Redfin Research Center finds home sellers harbor concerns about the state of the economy and declining optimism toward selling their homes. "Almost certainly due to the U.S. government shutdown and debt ceiling battle in October, sellers this quarter were most worried about the state of the U.S. economy, with 39 percent naming 'general economic conditions' as a concern about listing their home," Redfin stated Thursday in its Real-Time Seller Survey.

Sabal Financial Group, L.P., a privately held diversified financial services firm that specializes in real estate, lending, and banking, appointed Marguerite Brogan as managing director.

Recent findings released by online lender exchange LendingTree reveal that the financial health of prospective borrowers dipped in this year's third quarter after seeing a sizable improvement in the second. The company attributed the slight decline in borrower health to rising home prices, which boosted loan-to-value ratios across the country to a national average of 89.8 percent and put more financial pressure on potential borrowers. National health also experienced a slight drag from a dip in the average credit score of borrowers.