Technology

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

Out of all of the SARs filed from depository institutions in 2011, possible mortgage fraud was reported on 92,028 files, compared to only 70,472 the prior year.

Residential lenders funded $462 billion of home mortgages in the first quarter, the industry’s best showing since the fourth quarter of 2010.

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.

How effective is social media as a sales tool? According to a pair of researchers at Behavioral Sciences Research Press, the old tried and true method of person-to-person contact is much more effective.

The Federal Housing Administration will begin collecting full, electronic appraisal reports for the mortgages that it insures.

The FHFA has created a financial incentive for executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure that deadlines for the Uniform Mortgage Data Program are met.

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.

Freddie Mac CIO Robert Lux shares his thoughts about the GSEs’ Uniform Mortgage Data Program.

The discussion in a number of panel sessions at the Mortgage Bankers Association National Secondary Market Conference in New York on May 6 through 9, was if, let alone when, private capital would return to the industry. In the exhibit hall, much of the vendor focus was on technology and compliance which would ease that transition. Nary a wholesaler or correspondent aggregator was exhibiting.