Origination

Mortgage Contracting Services (MCS), a national property preservation and inspection company, announced it is teaming up with Pruvan, a Round Rock, Texas-based company that offers a photo app for field-based businesses.

Freddie Mac announced that Richard C. Hartnack, formerly vice chairman and head of consumer and small business banking at U.S. Bancorp, has been elected as a director on the company's board.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported a slight bump in contract mortgage interest rates throughout April.

Activity in the private mortgage insurance sector picked up in April, according to monthly statistics from Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA).

360 Mortgage Group, an Austin-headquartered mortgage banker focusing on third-party origination, announced the hiring of three new wholesale account executives who possess a combined total of more than 65 years of mortgage experience.

While banks and lending institutions are nervous about the waves of compliance challenges coming in, NTC says the smartest companies are using regulatory changes as a springboard to grow.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported a disappointing 0.3 percent gain in its Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) in April.

Encouraging economic data helped lift fixed mortgage rates to their highest level in the past year this week, according to surveys from Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance rose for the third time in the last four weeks, increasing 10,000 to 354,000 for the week ending May 25, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Another spike in home prices drove Massachusetts sales down for the third straight month in April, according to the Warren Group.