Mortgage Sellers Stung with Court Order for Do Not Call Violations Under the terms of a court order announced by the FTC, two individuals and one corporate defendant have been barred from violating the agency's Telemarketing Sales Rule and its Do Not Call provisions arising from a telemarketing scheme designed to sell mortgage loans, refinancing services, and other products to U.S. consumers. Full Story

American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act The House this week will consider the American Housing Rescue and Floreclosure Prevention Act. This bill will amend the Senate-passed H.R. 3221 (As amended by the Senate). Full Story

HUD Says Bush Plan Will Help Homeowners; House Plan Falls Short According to HUD, the Bush Administration implements a targeted, financially responsible plan to help homeowners while the House counters with a reckless approach that could leave taxpayers footing the bill. Full Story

Commercial/Multifamily Originations Volume Hit Record in 2007 Despite Mid-year Slowdown The commercial/multifamily originations market grew 19 percent in 2007, with mortgage bankers closing $507.7 billion in commercial/multifamily loans according the Mortgage Bankers Association's 2007 Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Finance: Annual Origination Volume Summation. Full Story

Soft Existing-Home Sales Expected to Rise Midsummer A flat pattern in home sales activity should continue for the next couple months before improving over the summer, according to the latest forecast by Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. Full Story

Cash-Out Refinance Share Smallest Since Q2 2004 In the first quarter of 2008, 56 percent of Freddie Mac-owned loans that were refinanced resulted in new mortgages with loan amounts that were at least 5 percent higher than the original mortgage balances. This was the smallest cash-out refinance percentage since the second quarter of 2004. Full Story

FDIC Proposes Home Ownership Preservation Loans The FDIC is proposing that Congress authorize the Treasury Department to make loans to borrowers with unaffordable mortgages to pay down up to 20 percent of their principal. The repayment and financing costs for these Home Ownership Preservation loans would be borne by mortgage investors and borrowers. Full Story

Task Force Forms to Deepen Lending Probe By Staff Writer, Originator Times Federal investigative agencies, including the IRS and the FBI, have joined together to form a task force to deepen their probe into potential crimes perpetrated by major players and individual brokers within the mortgage industry. Full Story

The Mortgage Market This Week Monday, May 05, 2008 The Bond Rate Monitor Last week, after rocking and rolling rates ended about .125% better than where they began. Which was quite welcome after the Fed's 25 bps cut in rates and inflation posting slightly higher numbers than what was expected. The week ahead, although light on economic news may still have the opportunity to move rates. Read on to learn why. Full Story

Applications Increase In Latest MBA Weekly Survey Wednesday, May 07, 2008 The Mortgage Bankers Association released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 2, 2008. The Market Composite Index was 655.4, an increase of 15.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 567.0 one week earlier. Full Story

Mortgage Rates Little Changed, Inflation Continues to Cause Concern Monday, May 05, 2008 Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.06 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending May 1, 2008, up from last week when it averaged 6.03 percent. Full Story

FICS Promotes Shalecia Stewart to Assistant Vice President of Customer Service Wednesday, May 07, 2008 FICS Financial Industry Computer Systems, Inc. announced that it has promoted Loan Producer Customer Support manager, Shalecia Stewart, to assistant vice president of Customer Service. Full Story

Loan-Score Relocates Headquarters to Larger Facility Wednesday, May 07, 2008 Loan Score Decisioning Systems Loan Score Decisioning Systems announced that it has relocated its corporate headquarters to a larger facility. The move provides Loan-Score with the necessary infrastructure to swiftly expand operations when marketplace liquidity returns. Full Story

Mortgage Builder Software Partners with Optimal Blue Wednesday, May 07, 2008 Mortgage Builder Mortgage Builder Software clients will now be able to do all their product selection, pricing and secondary marketing activities without leaving the Mortgage Builder environment thanks to a partnership with Optimal Blue. Full Story

Fannie Mae Announces Plan to Raise Capital Wednesday, May 07, 2008 Fannie Mae Fannie Mae announced its plan to raise $6 billion in new capital through public offerings of common stock, non-cumulative mandatory convertible preferred stock, and non-cumulative, non-convertible preferred stock. Full Story

Synovus and Freddie Mac Bring Get The Facts! to Central Alabama Monday, May 05, 2008 Freddie Mac Synovus Mortgage Corp. and Freddie Mac announce a new first-time homebuyer campaign. The new Initiative provides a grassroots campaign to demystify the homeownership process for families in four of 12 Central Alabama counties. Full Story