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As the debt crisis in Europe continues to worsen and investors look to Treasury bonds for security, fixed mortgage rates fell to all-time record lows in the last week of May. According to the results of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the 30-year fixed averaged 3.75 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending May 31. This is down from 3.88 percent the previous week and 4.55 percent at the same time last year. The 15-year fixed rate mortgage also fell, bringing three of the four benchmark mortgage rates under 3 percent.

Churchill Mortgage, a lender with a presence in 23 states continues to grow since its founding in 1992 and just announced the addition of 12 new professionals joining its team in Tennessee and Texas.

First time claims for unemployment insurance rose to 383,000 up from the prior week├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós 373,000, revised up from the previously reported 370,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists had expected the report would be unchanged at 370,000 initial claims.

Despite record-low mortgage rates, mortgage applications fell 1.3 percent last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The trade group found that mortgage loan application volume declined by a seasonally adjusted 1.3 percent. It fell 1.6 percent on a seasonally unadjusted basis.The Refinance Index climbed down by 1.5 percent from the week before, with declines on the way for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index by 0.6 percent. The same index went down by a seasonally unadjusted 1.8 percent.

Interthinx released its quarterly Mortgage Fraud Risk Report Wednesday, showing that the national Mortgage Fraud Risk Index has dropped below the 140 mark for the first time since 2009. The report, put together by an internal team of fraud experts at Interthinx, showed that the National Mortgage Fraud Risk Index decreased to 139, 4.3 percent down from last quarter, 3.1 percent from the first quarter of 2011, and lower than it has been since the second quarter of 2009. The number of "very high risk" metropolitan statistical areas also fell.

In a study the first of its kinds, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported Wednesday in urban areas across three regions of the country owning a home near a national wildlife refuge increases home value and helps support the surrounding community's tax base. The survey, conducted by economic researches at the University of North Carolina, found three regions that showed a home value increase: 7 percent to 9 percent in the Southeast, 4 percent to 5 percent in the Northeast, and 3 percent to 6 percent in California and Nevada. Tourism to the refuges also plays a role in in the increase.

In what the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau called an important step in the development of our nonbank supervision program, the CFPB officially proposed a rule last week to establish procedures for the bureau's supervision of nonbank financial entities. The Dodd-Frank Act grants the CFPB authority to supervise a nonbank that "it has reasonable cause to determine is posing a risk to consumers based on complaints or other information it receives."

The thirteenth largest servicer in the nation, Dallas-based American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., announced Tuesday a company-wide re-launch under a new brand: Homeward Residential, Inc.

David H. Stevens, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association is leaving his post to assume the role of president of SunTrust Mortgage. Stevens will leave his current position June 30 and assume his new position at SunTrust July 16.

Lending solutions provider Wipro Gallagher Solutions announced Wednesday the results of a third-party scalability test of its loan origination system, NetOxygen, at levels of 10,000 to 20,000 users.