The mortgage division of D.R. Horton recently fell victim to a cyber security attack, potentially compromising sensitive borrower data, the Fort Worth, Texas-based homebuilder disclosed late Thursday.

Two private equity investors have agreed to buy TransUnion Corp. Advent International and GS Capital Partners VI Fund LP will buy the credit bureau from its current stockholders, including Madison Dearborn Partners and the Pritzker family business interests.

Foreclosure filings nationwide rose 3% in January from the month prior, a sign that improving delinquency rates may have a huge lag effect.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage held fast to its record-low rate of 3.87% for the third week in a row, according to Freddie Mac's primary market survey.

The pace of housing construction hit a three-year high in January as multifamily starts rose nearly 15% while single-family activity declined 1%, according to government figures released Thursday morning.

Mortgage applications declined 1% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending February 10, driven by an almost 9% seasonally adjusted drop in purchase applications, according to figures compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Roughly 43% of borrowers with 30-year loans who refinanced into a new product during the fourth quarter chose shorter maturities, the highest reading since 2003.

Despite a shadow inventory of 1.6 million seriously delinquent loans, and a huge inventory of foreclosures, nearly 50% of 900 housing markets tracked by CoreLogic registered price gains last year.

• Strategies for the New Servicing Market• Q&A with Freddie Mac’s CIO• Infrastructure as a Service• Tech Trends in Default and Performing Servicing

How oppressive are distressed sales to the housing market? Try this: The top 50 sellers of homes are banks, according to Jonathan Smoke of Housing Intelligence, the research arm of the Hanley Wood publishing company.

In these times where dispensing consumer credit has been akin to doing it through an eyedropper, the use of alternative data sources is one way to possibly increase the flow of money, one proponent said.

Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock Financial, is nobody's fool - not by a long shot. He cut his teeth at First Boston many moons ago, helped shape the MBS market, and then went on to create a financial services powerhouse: BlackRock

When it comes to appraisals, the key words in today’s market are quality and defensibility. Inaccurate valuations result in serious risk. When loans go sour, no investor or lender wants to be the one stuck holding the bad loan. Today, the threat of a forced buyback, or even follow on legal action, is all too real.

A federal judicial panel denied a motion to include the Dallas County district attorney’s lawsuit against Merscorp in the ongoing multidistrict litigation against the private loan registry in Phoenix.

Real Matters, the Markham, Ont.-based parent of Solidifi, an appraisal management solutions company with operations on both sides of the border, has obtained C$22 million (US$22.13 million) of "growth financing" through the placement of both equity and debt.

Mortgage lenders issued $30 billion of Ginnie Mae MBS in January, up 9% from the previous month, according to new figures released Thursday morning.

Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries confirmed that home prices have not hit bottom yet as values declined 1.1% in the fourth quarter last year, but there are good signs ahead for the market.

Tree.com, Charlotte, N.C., has modified the agreement with Discover Financial Services regarding the latter's purchase of Home Loan Center, which does business as LendingTree Loans.

County recorders in New Jersey will now be required to accept electronic documents, following the recent enactment of a bill to modernize the land recording process.

commercial real estate exposure was the main reason why bank loans failed in January. Nonperforming loans for commercial real estate comprised $363.5 million of the total $487.7 million for the failed banks.