Government

Carrington Mortgage Services has announced it has expanded its portfolio of government loan programs by offering U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) loans through its retail and wholesale lending operations.

First time claims for unemployment insurance dropped to the lowest level in five years, falling 19,000 to 326,000 for the week ended July 27, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected the number of claims to drop to edge up to 345,000, from the 343,000 originally reported for the week ended July 20.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Solvency Act of 2013 (S. 1376) is headed to the Senate after receiving approval from the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Despite concerns about rising mortgage rates and low inflation, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted Wednesday to continue its policy of near-zero interest rates and its $85-billion-per-month bond-buying program. In a subtle change of language, the committee "reaffirmed its view that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends."

DocuTech Corp., a compliance and documentation technology provider headquartered in Idaho, hired Frank Colson as product manager.

Veros, a provider of collateral valuation technology, enterprise risk management, and predictive analytics, announced an update to its VeroSCORE appraisal risk scoring tool.

Home prices rose to their highest levels in almost five years in May, increasing by a non-seasonally adjusted 2.5 percent, according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released Tuesday. The 20-city index was up 12.2 percent from a year earlier, and the companion 10-city index was up 11.8 percent. For the month, the 10-city index rose 2.5 percent and the 20-city index was up 2.4 percent. The two surveys have improved month-over-month and year-over-year for 12 consecutive months.

LRES announced the latest version of LRES DirectConnect, an integration framework enabling clients and third-party systems to integrate into the LRES LINK order management platform.

Stewart Title Guaranty Company announced the appointment of Brett Kline as underwriting counsel for the Carolinas.

Responding to higher mortgage rates, the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) slipped 0.4 percent in June to 110.9, the group reported Monday.