Mortgage Press

Statistics, geography, and demographics of the HARP Refinance Program’s First 100 Days. Data tracked includes Median LTV, Median Interest Rate, and Average Loan-to-Value.

Last quarter, not a single bank tightened its prime residential mortgage guidelines. The economy is looking up, and so are mortgage rates.

Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) has announced that its LPS Applied Analytics division has updated its home price index (LPS HPI) with residential sales concluded during November 2011. The LPS HPI summarizes home price trends nationwide by tracking sales each month in more than 13,500 ZIP codes. Within each ZIP code, the LPS HPI tracks five price levels from low to high.Click to continue

For the week ending Jan. 27, mortgage applications decreased 2.9 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased nine percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 3.6 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1.7 percent from one week earlier.Click to continue

Churchill Mortgage has announced that Kevin Watson has been named as its Middle Tennessee regional sales manager. Watson has more than 20 years of mortgage industry experience and in his new role, will oversee the growth of new branches in the region as well as existing branches in Brentwood, Tenn., Murfreesboro, Tenn., Mount Juliet, Tenn., and Franklin, Ky., and will head Churchill’s Realtor Specialty Team, an innovative program built around the business development system of Home Buyers Marketing Inc.Click to continue

Point2 has released its U.S. International Real Estate Traffic Report, for the fourth quarter of 2011. During the period, Florida was the most attractive state for international visitors, retaining the top spot among all U.S. states, for the second consecutive Point2 report quarter. The study analyzes international traffic to U.S. properties posted on the Point2 Homes consumer real estate listings portal. Florida attracted 31.04 percent of all international traffic to the U.S. in Q4, yielding just under two percent of its third quarter share to competing states.Click to continue

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has announced the first step of a Real Estate-Owned (REO) Initiative targeted to the hardest-hit metropolitan areas nationwide. Investors interested in participating may “pre-qualify” to establish eligibility to bid on transactions in the initial pilot phase as well as subsequent phases. The REO Initiative will allow qualified investors to purchase pools of foreclosed properties with the requirement to rent the purchased properties for a specified number of years.Click to continue

Data through November 2011, released by S&P Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, showed declines of 1.3 percent for both the 10- and 20-City Composites in November over October. For a second consecutive month, 19 of the 20 cities covered by the Home Price Indicies also saw home prices decrease. The 10- and 20-City Composites posted annual returns of -3.6 percent and -3.7 percent versus November 2010, respectively, totals worse than the -3.2 percent and -3.4 percent respective rates reported in October.Click to continue

Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) has responded to the civil complaint filed by Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto against LPS, DOCX LLC, LPS Default Solutions Inc.Click to continue

DocuSign has announced that Cartavi, the simple document sharing platform for real estate, has integrated with DocuSign to help real estate professionals close more deals faster in the cloud. “We’re very excited to provide Cartavi subscribers the opportunity to close real estate transactions completely in the cloud as a result of our integration with DocuSign’s eSignature solution,” said Glenn Shimkus, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cartavi.Click to continue