Government

The nation's housing developments need to grow up. There are many challenges to address: Support services to allow seniors to age in place, financing residential developments ranging from independent living facilities to nursing homes, creating affordable housing for low-income and low-net-worth seniors, and enabling older homeowners to tap accumulated equity. Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research Group recently published a Data Note detailing the characteristics and housing consumption of the nation's elderly to get a clearer picture of the needs that must be addressed soon.

Standard & Poor's has reaffirmed Clayton Holdings LLC's standing as a third-party due diligence provider for residential mortgage-backed securities. The company's announcement follows S&P's annual review of the company's rating.

Another comedian is set to sell his California estate. Funnyman and host of The Late, Late Show on CBS, Craig Ferguson, has put his Los Angeles home on the market for $1.995 million.

As the economy flounders, Americans think community planners should play a large role in helping the country recover, according to a poll released Thursday by the American Planning Association. The research study showed that two-thirds of Americans believe their communities need more planning to promote economic recovery, and 44 percent said they don't believe their community is doing enough to promote recovery. Fifty-one percent of respondents expressed an interest in participating in community planning efforts.

A new director of sales has been appointed at New American Funding. The national mortgage lender and Fannie Mae seller and servicer has hired Darren Kidder to fill the role.

Wells Fargo recently announced that it will accept refinance applications for homeowners with FHA mortgages only if their loans are serviced in-house by the mortgage lender. Vickee Adams, a spokesperson for Wells, said in an e-mailed statement that the lender currently services more than 500,000 customers with FHA home loans that could qualify to save money by refinancing under changes at the agency. The lender will start accepting only refinance applications for in-house loans on Tuesday.

According to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, the key to the housing market recovery is job growth. "What the for-sale market needs most is a sustained increase in employment to bring household growth back to its long-term pace," the Joint Center said in its recent report, The State of the Nation's Housing 2012. Multifamily starts rose 54 percent and home improvement spending rose 0.6 percent over the year in 2011 and single family housing starts declined 8.6 percent over the year.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced Friday the arrest of Edwin G. Salazar, 34, of Downey, California, and Michael Z. Zuniga, 41, of Fullerton, California, in a $1.3 million Ponzi scheme that targeted Latino investors, many of whom were seniors. Salazar and Fullerton, who operated as OMEGA Investments Corp., were arrested on 57 counts of elder abuse, grand theft, and securities fraud. From January 2007 through June 2008, the licensed insurance agent issued more than $1.3 million in fraudulent securities to individual investors they befriended through their insurance business.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Federal Housing Administration Acting Commissioner Carol Galante announced in a press conference Friday FHA's program to sell mortgage loan pools to investors. The Distressed Asset Stabilization Program, designed to give homeowners with seriously delinquent loans a chance to avoid foreclosure, is an expansion of an earlier FHA pilot program that allows investors to purchase loan pools headed for foreclosure. Investors are then charged with the task of working to bring the loan out of default. The program starts in September 2012 with a sale of the loan pools.

SunTrust Mortgage has appointed new leadership, with the announcement of two new executive vice presidents. Peter E. Mahoney will join SunTrust as the EVP of mortgage strategy, and Jack Wixted will become an EVP and the chief risk officer for the company.