Government

More than a year after reporting a shortfall of $16.3 billion in the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) Mutual Mortgage Insurance (MMI) Fund, HUD announced significant improvements in the agency's financial situation--though the fund remains in the red. An actuarial report released Friday shows FHA's insurance fund for single-family home loans has regained $15 billion dollars in value over the last year, bringing it to -$1.3 billion dollars and a capital ratio of -0.11 percent.

As the newly confirmed Mel Watt prepares to take the reins at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), current Acting Director Edward DeMarco has announced changes to the agency's senior staff.

HUD has issued a newly revised definition of a qualified mortgage (QM) that will affect all Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans moving forward. The new rules go into effect on January 10, 2014, and will apply to mortgages that are insured, guaranteed, or administered by HUD. The agency defined two categories of QM, with the main difference being the relation between a loan's annual percentage rate and its average prime offer rate.

Tom Lewis, founder and CEO of Arizona-based homebuilder T.W. Lewis Company, is the first-ever inductee in Professional Builder magazine's National Housing Quality (NHQ) Award Hall of Fame, the company announced.

The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) of San Francisco has elected Pacific Premier Bancorp CEO Steven R. Gardner to its board of directors.

The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) has had laser sharp focus on ensuring foreclosure fraud offenders suffer the consequences of their offenses. A northern California man is now behind bars after a SIGTARP investigation found he used the U.S. bankruptcy courts to con desperate homeowners into paying him monthly fees to postpone foreclosure proceedings. He was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release on fraud charges.

The national unemployment rate sank from 7.3 percent to 7.0 percent in November, with 203,000 new jobs added to employer payrolls, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday.

In Georgia, Equity Loans LLC made two announcements: the launch of its correspondent lending channel and the hiring of two new executives to support the division.

Third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) advanced ahead of initial estimates, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported Thursday. For the second of its three quarterly GDP reports, BEA put economic growth at 3.6 percent in the third quarter, well ahead of the 2.8 percent growth projected in the preliminary report released early November. According to BEA, the revision reflects an increase in private inventory investment, which was far greater than previously estimated.

Carrington Mortgage Services' lending division appointed Carl Grimes as branch manager of its office in Tampa, Florida.