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In Virginia, Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) is celebrating the final weeks of the year with record closing volume. Recently announcing that the organization's total mortgage loan closings for October hit $1 billion, NFCU reported that year-to-date, it has made more than $8.3 billion in mortgage-related funding available to consumers.

New home sales barely budged in October, dropping 0.3 percent to 368,000 after September's report was revised sharply downward from an original 389,000 to 369,000 the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected the report to show a sales pace of 387,000. Even with the slow growth in October, sales are up 17.2 percent from October 2011. However, the year-over-year gain was weaker than the 25.3 percent annual growth reported for September.

When calculating average monthly mortgage payments by state and the District of Columbia, Lending Tree found the nation's capital has the highest average monthly payment and highest share of income that goes toward a house payment.

After losing a previous bid earlier this year, UBS is making another attempt to shut down a lawsuit from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

With revenue up and the housing market showing a sustained recovery, Fitch Ratings says the outlook for the U.S. title insurance industry is "stable." The agency points to improved revenue and reduced expenses as signs of stability. Operating profit margins for Fitch's title universe rose to 10.3 percent in the first nine months of 2012, a dramatic jump from 6.1 percent during the same period in 2011. In addition, title revenues increased by more than 15 percent from January to September as housing markets found solid ground.

Radian Guaranty Inc. announced a complete integration with Mortgagebot to include Radian mortgage insurance in its loan origination system (LOS).

A new study from Fannie Mae suggests that many Americans fail to do their homework when considering mortgage options.

After reaching a year-to-date high in October, consumer confidence continued to climb in November, according to The Conference Board.

Home prices rose just slightly over the month of September, demonstrating a 0.1 percent increase from August, according to Lender Processing Services' Home Price Index, which analyzes home prices in more than 15,500 ZIP codes each month. The modest increase lines up with the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which came in under expectations. While the 0.1 percent increase is slight, LPS does report more significant change on a yearly and year-to-date basis.

In California, WFG Lender Services (WFGLS) is welcoming a new senior leader. The title insurance and real estate services company recently announced that Jason Schmidt has been named SVP of closing operations.