News

The gap between the listing price and closing price of an average home sold continued to narrow last year as market conditions gave the advantage to sellers.

United States Appraisals, a nationwide appraisal management company based in Kansas, named Richard Garrie as chief appraiser. Garrie has more than 17 years of residential valuation experience, including eight years as a branch manager for Forsythe Appraisals, LLC.

ORNL Federal Credit Union (FCU), the largest credit union in East Tennessee, announced it has entered into an agreement to purchase land to be used for a new full service branch in 2014. The announcement follows a tremendous year of growth for the credit union, which saw a 15 percent increase in its customer loan portfolio and a more than 12 percent growth in all loans in 2012.

Fixed mortgage rates continued to hold steady last week, according to data from Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com.

Bolstered by favorable seasonal adjustment factors, first-time claims for unemployment insurance dropped 27,000 to 341,000 for the week ending February 9, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected a much smaller decline to 360,000. Initial claims were under 350,000--a dividing line between a strong and weak labor market--for the third time in the last five weeks, hinting layoff activity has returned to normal.

Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner Carol Galante sat in front of the House Financial Services Committee for the second time to field questions and criticisms about the agency's practices and market share. It was established during the hearing that FHA insures 56.4 percent of mortgage loans today, though Galante was quick to assert in her testimony that FHA's "market share has been declining steadily since its peak in 2009." The commissioner also maintained the agency has no immediate need for a bailout.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama acknowledged the progress that has been made in the housing market with rising prices, increasing home purchases, and an uptick on construction. However, "even with mortgage rates near a 50-year low, too many families with solid credit who want to buy a home are being rejected," he said. Obama also proclaimed his support for expanding access to refinancing, calling on Congress to pass a refinance bill currently in the pipeline.

Altisource Portfolio Solutions announced it is purchasing certain fee-based businesses from Ocwen Financial for a combined purchase price of $218.6 million. According to a company release, Altisource entered into non-binding letters of intent with Ocwen to acquire certain fee-based businesses related to the servicer's recent purchase of Homeward Residential and the anticipated purchase of the mortgage servicing platform from Residential Capital.

A federal judge turned down Wells Fargo's claim that a federal lawsuit against the bank violates the terms of the national mortgage settlement.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently finalized several rules for the mortgage industry, including the ability-to-repay rule and new mortgage servicing guidelines. As the Bureau prepares for the rules to take effect in January 2014, it aims to take several actions to educate and prepare both the industry and consumers on the new regulations.