Mortgage defaults

The housing industry experienced another positive sign on Tuesday as CoreLogic reported that completed foreclosures declined 14% in December from the previous year.

Foreclosure filings for this month in metro Atlanta were up 14% from January, but were still the lowest number for any February since 2001.

One of the culprits in the building and bursting of the nation's housing bubble, the low-down-payment mortgage, is back in favor and readily available at a lender near you.

When the financial crisis obliterated South Florida's housing market, the number of foreclosures in Miami skyrocketed.

Ocwen Financial Corp., which agreed with regulators in December to improve its mortgage servicing, sent Nathan Fitzgerald a notice saying his loan was in default. If he didn't send a $2,266 check immediately, Ocwen said, it would foreclose on him.

Protests by community groups and now a public hearing threaten to delay the completion of CIT's acquisition of OneWest Bank. The deal will probably get approved, and it might not get delayed too long, but all those "probablys" and "mights" are what make the proponents of more big M&A queasy.

Bank of America Corp., which had been warning investors to avoid U.S. government-backed mortgage securities, reversed its call this week. The reason: oil prices are stabilizing.

Once defined by the size of its foreclosure offerings, the Myrtle Beach, S.C., area real estate market now outperforms both state and national real estate markets in the current rate of foreclosures and the percentage point drop in foreclosures over the past year.

Two Justice Department lawyers leading an effort to hold financial firms accountable for the mortgage-fed debacle that fueled the Great Recession stopped in to talk strategy in mid-2009 with Jerry Brown, then California's attorney general.

San Francisco's controller discouraged lawmakers from going forward with a proposal to use the city's eminent-domain powers to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, citing federal limitations and risks to the city's borrowing costs.

Standard & Poor's has agreed to pay Pennsylvania $21.5 million to settle a federal lawsuit that claimed the company defrauded investors by abandoning its role as an independent loan evaluator in the lead-up to the Great Recession.

Ocwen Financial Corp., the mortgage company that's faced attacks from regulators and bond investors, had its proficiency grades reduced by Fitch Ratings.

Dan Sparks helped Goldman Sachs Group Inc. profit from its bets against subprime mortgages. Now he's expanding credit to Americans hurt when those types of loans soured and the housing market collapsed.

Standard & Poor's tab is $1.4 billion — including $52.5 million for Illinois — to resolve long-standing allegations by federal and state authorities that the firm misled investors in the run-up to 2008's financial collapse.

Bank of America plans to lay off 202 employees in a loan servicing unit in Norfolk, Va., by March 29 because of the continuing decline in the number of delinquent mortgages.

The sale of real estate owned properties generated greater returns than short sales in December, according to Black Knight Financial Services.

The Super Bowl is history, marking the start of a new high-stakes season: the spring real estate market. After what many industry insiders considered a disappointing 2014, hopes are high for 2015.

Intense scrutiny is rarely focused on condemnation clauses in security instruments, but they will set the tone for potentially drawn out litigation as the parties work through the complexities specific to condemnation.

While Rhode Island's real estate market made gains in 2014, the aftereffects of the foreclosure crisis continue to hold the housing market back from a more robust recovery.

The number of foreclosure cases initiated against Hawaii property owners fell last year for the first time in four years.