Servicing

Gaining industry approval, SharperLending LLC has announced that Veros Real Estate Solutions confirmed its appraisal firewall platform for integration with the Uniform Collateral Data Portal (UCDP). SharperLending released its appraisal firewall interface to the UCDP on December 10, and Veros has now declared the web-based program operationally ready for submissions.

Fannie Mae CEO Michael Williams announced Tuesday that he will resign once the mortgage giant selects his successor. A 21-year veteran with Fannie Mae, he accepted an appointment to head up the mortgage company just as the FHFA placed it into conservatorship during the financial crisis. The announcement follows Ed Haldeman├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós decision last fall to step down as CEO of Freddie Mac, just after the two executives saw themselves and eight others in senior leadership positions embroiled in scandal over multimillion-dollar bonuses.

Mortgage Cadence, LLC, has been selected by Generation Mortgage Company to replace the company's current lending system. Generation will begin using Mortgage Cadence's Orchestrator, Finale Document Services, and Opus systems to gain enhanced end-to-end support for its mortgage lending business.

Vertical Capital Markets Group has announced the debut of the mortgage-based Vertical Capital Income Fund. Targeting the development of a quality portfolio of mortgages for investors, Vertical's newly launched project seeks to capitalize on low-priced loans.

Interest rates for the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage smashed new records for Zillow, which reported current rates falling as low as 3.71 percent, the lowest in survey history for the real estate Web site. Zillow found the newest numbers for mortgage rates with Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, which it sources from anonymous quotes and releases weekly. The 30-year fixed-rate loan fell to new lows from 3.73 percent seen last week, and hovered at rates as low as 3.67 percent Monday morning. Zillow reported rates for 15-year loans falling to 3.03 percent.

A surge in suits involving mortgage-backed securities propelled litigation cases for mortgage servicers to 218 over the third quarter last year, according to a recent index. Mortgage-backed securities litigation rose by 36 cases over the third quarter, up from 26 seen from the last quarter and just 12 in the third quarter 2010. Foreclosure-related suits also went up from 67 in the second quarter to 90 in the third quarter, followed shortly by litigation from investors, which leapt from 50 to 82 over the same time frame.

Making our mortgage fraud blotter Monday, news outlets reported stories involving a Wisconsin man and his wife who allegedly raked in $10 million and another man from Chicago purportedly responsible for hundreds of thousands in advanced fees he bilked from churches. In one story, the churches handed over thousands in advance fees in exchange for capital for multimillion-dollar loans, while in another a married couple went through sham buyers to siphon $10 million in funds from lenders with bank-owned properties at their disposal.

Job growth, appreciating home prices, and fewer scuttled single-family housing permits helped improve 76 housing markets over the last six months, according to an index released Monday. The National Association of Home Builders and First American Title Insurance Company released a joint index to measure improving markets against these criteria. Cities that made the index included Dallas, Des Moines, and Jacksonville, with Florida, Michigan, Tennessee, and Texas garnering the most of any states in improving markets.

Consumer sentiment climbed higher last month despite historically low conditions, with Americans by and large feeling more optimistic about housing, according to Fannie Mae. In conducting its December National Housing Survey, the GSE polled 1,000 respondents with questions about the economy and housing conditions at large. The big picture? More Americans expect a better New Year for their financial circumstances, higher home prices and mortgage rates, and steadily improving conditions for the housing market. Sixty-four percent reported wanting to buy their next home.

Home prices fell year-over-year by 2.1 percent in 2011 but at the slightest clip unseen since 2006, with forecasts for a welcome appreciation on the way in 2012, according to Clear Capital. The real estate research organization offered up the numbers in a Home Data Index Market Report it releases monthly. What do the numbers say? Home prices sagged in early 2011 but lifted as the market underwent some stabilization and more bank-owned properties left the housing supply. The report suggested that home prices could inch forward by 0.2 percent, with many markets ready to stabilize.