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The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) shared a proposal that it says would bring private capital back into the mortgage market while decreasing costs for taxpayers and borrowers.

The lending division of Carrington Mortgage Services announced the addition of industry vet Jeff Gillis as SVP of operations. In addition, Carrington announced the promotion of Mariano Demarin to national sales director for the firm's retail lending division.

In its most recent economic outlook, Fannie Mae's Economic and Strategic Research Group revealed expectations for the economy to continue the modest recovery and grow 2.2 percent this year.

The company behind the VantageScore credit scoring model announced a webinar covering the current credit environment and new predictive models developed post-recession. VantageScore Solutions will host the webinar, which will feature Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, and Sarah Davies, SVP of analytic, product management, and research for VantageScore Solutions.

Realtors attending the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo expressed renewed confidence in a forum on the commercial real estate (CRE) market. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun joined several Realtor CRE specialists on a panel to discuss the economy and regulatory issues and how they impact the market. In a live audience poll, the majority of attendees said their local economy is either a little better or showing a major improvement from last year.

Economists usually do it with models, so it's rare in economics to be able to conduct a laboratory experiment.

The juice that will fuel the economic recovery is housing, or more specifically, new home sales, Freddie Mac stated in its economic and housing market outlook report for May.

According to the CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes, some markets experiencing rapid gains may soon see a slowdown or even reversal of recent trends. As homeowners looking to sell are encouraged by rising prices and as new construction picks up, increased inventory will dampen these rapid increases, according to CoreLogic. Also, rising prices will eventually ward off investors, and "it is not clear if demand from first-time and trade-up buyers will immediately fill the void," said David Stiff, chief economist for CoreLogic Case-Shiller.

LendingQB announced the implementation of mortgage insurance (MI) underwriting guidelines into its automated system, giving users the ability to automatically check MI eligibility and pricing.

While other hot-button issues have drawn national attention away from the subject of tax reform, speakers at the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo urged industry professionals not to forget what's at stake. Speaking in a session, political commentator Jeffrey Birnbaum told Realtors that "Congress could move legislation quickly on tax reform" if necessary, spelling possible danger for the mortgage interest tax deduction.