Origination

The Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs recently reported that First Tennessee Bank N.A., headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, has agreed to pay $212.5 million to resolve allegations of its violation of the False Claims Act that stems from Federal Housing Administration-insured (FHA) mortgage lending. Allegedly, First Tennessee Bank knowingly originated and underwrote mortgage loans insured by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) FHA that did not meet applicable requirements, the Justice Department reported.

CoreLogic, Inc. released its April 2015 Home Price Index (HPI) today, which shows that home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 6.8 percent in April 2015 compared with April 2014. CoreLogic is a leading global property information, analytics, and data-enabled services provider.

Newbold Advisors has expanded its decade-strong regulatory and compliance support practice with new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) service offerings, according to a recent company press release. As the August 1, 2015 deadline quickly approaches, Newbold intends to assist lenders in supporting the transition to the new rules, finalize new process implementation, create contingency plans, and resolve any post-implementation issues.

Aspen Grove Solutions (AGS), founded in Boston, Massachusetts, recently announced in a press release the promotion of Ron Briggs to the position of SVP of business development, effective immediately. Aspen Grove is a leading enterprise provider of property related technology solutions for REO, short sale, asset management, inspections, property preservation, vendor management, and complianc

In an examination of whether millennials are helping inner cities experience a rebirth, the authors of ProTeck Valuation's Home Value Forecast (HVF) for May determined that while some urban areas with populations dominated by millennials are thriving, urban recovery is still happening slowly nationwide, according to a press release from ProTeck on Monday.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has named Richard K. Green, University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate director, as a senior advisor for housing finance, according to an announcement from HUD. Green, one of the nation's pre-eminent housing economists, will replace Edward Golding, who was named principal deputy assistant secretary with HUD at the end of March. Green's one-year appointment as senior advisor with HUD will begin on July 1.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines (FHLB Des Moines) announced today in a press release that it will merge with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle (FHLB Seattle). More details concerning this new combination will be included in a related Form 8-K that FHLB Des Moines will file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Eric Rosengren, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, said in his speech called “One Policymaker’s Wait for Better Economic Data” at the Capital Workforce Partners “Workforce Stars” Event in Hartford, Connecticut that, predictions concerning the economy have been much weaker than expected in the first half of this year. He also noted that policymakers should wait until the economy picks up before raising short-term interest rates.

A working paper titled, “What’s Behind the Non-Bank Mortgage Boom?”, released by the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard's Kennedy School found that, non-bank lending institutions have increased their market share of agency purchase mortgage originations from 27 percent in mid-2012 to 48 percent in late 2014. The study is authored by senior fellow, Marshall Lux, and research assistant, Robert Greene.

In its second of three estimates of real gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the first quarter released Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) issued a downward revision of what analysts had already deemed "paltry" growth of 0.2 percent in the advance estimate for Q1 reported at the end of April. According to the BEA's second estimate for Q1, which is based on more complete source data than were available for the advance estimate, the GDP contracted at an annual rate of minus 0.7 percent.