Technology

The Census Bureau reported Wednesday that sales of newly built single-family homes rose to a 343,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate in April from a 332,000 rate in March.

Mortgage applications increased by almost 4% for the week ending May 18—thanks to surging refinancings—according to new figures compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Iron Horse Auction Company is conducting an online auction through next weekend selling 100 bank-owned properties in North Carolina and Virginia to investors and prospective homebuyers.

Banks are doing what they can to avoid depressing home prices, by focusing on reducing foreclosures rather than flooding the market with their backlog of properties, according to CoreLogic chief economist Mark Fleming.

Mortgage originations will fall to their lowest level in five years in 2012, according to the latest forecast by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The days of mortgage companies embarking on large, expensive and open-ended information technology projects are long gone and executives are focusing their efforts on smaller-scale projects that produce faster results, according to a panel at the Mortgage Bankers Association Commercial/Multifamily Servicing and Technology Conference this week in Dallas.

It is no surprise that the law of supply and demand drives costs upward or downward depending on the trajectory of the major component. The same principle holds true in the rental market.

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes rose 3.4% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.62 million units.

Changing market dynamics are putting more stress and constraints on commercial real estate servicing, causing processors to reevaluate their business models and strategies, according to a panel at the Mortgage Bankers Association commercial mortgage servicing and technology show this week in Dallas.

According to Lender Processing Services’ ‘First Look’ report from its database of nearly 40 million mortgage loans, the month-over-month delinquency rate rose 0.4% in April, bringing the overall delinquency rate of loans 30 or more days past due (but not in foreclosure) to 7.12%.