You remember the HARP program, don’t you? Originally, the idea was to refinance current but high LTV Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac borrowers into new, lower-rate loans—provided they were current. Home values (and lack of equity) reeked havoc on the concept so Uncle Sam took the LTV girdle off.

Insiders agree that certain types of solutions can serve as the best antidote to the still pervasive mortgage loan repurchase challenge. It is fueling a renewed drive to design tools that infuse all aspects of the mortgage production chain into coherent systems that are more efficient and transparent throughout the life of the loan.

Loan origination system vendor Mortgage Builder announced that it will acquire GCC Servicing Systems, the mortgage technology vendor it was spun off from in 1998.

Zillow Inc. is intensifying its efforts to create an untraditional media model that expands through strategic acquisitions.

Real estate auction veterans Michael Fine and Alan Kravets formed Hilco Real Estate Auctions, which will provide buyers and sellers with transparent sale methodologies for conducting real estate transactions.

John Robbins has created mortgage production platforms from scratch before, most notably with American Residential Mortgage and American Mortgage Network. But his latest venture, he admitted, was in at least one way a little more difficult because of how the industry environment has changed in the past few years.