Secondary Market

After experiencing the sharpest drop in two years in February, new home sales increased 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 417,000 in March, the Census Bureau and HUD reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected March sales to increase to 419,000 from a February's originally reported 411,000. The median price of a new home, according to the Census-HUD report, plunged $17,900 (or 6.8 percent) in March to $247,000, the largest month-over-month decline since February 2011.

Xerox Mortgage Services announced the release of BlitzDocs Servicing to simplify the paperless mortgage process for lenders and servicers.

The 2013 national bank failure tally ran up to eight this weekend as three more institutions fell by the wayside. FDIC announced the collapses of Chipola Community Bank in Marianna, Florida; Heritage Bank of North Florida in Orange Park; and First Federal Bank in Lexington, Kentucky.

In Pittsburgh, ServiceLink, an end-to-end origination, servicing, and default solutions provider for mortgage lenders and servicers, named Mike Zwerner as SVP of corporate development.

Users of DataQuick's National Property Database will now be able to search through four customized databases to more accurately identify business prospects.

Carrington Technology Solutions, LLC and Equator Business Solutions announced the commercial availability of RentPointe, Carrington's proprietary software application designed to meet the complexities of managing diverse portfolios of single-family rental properties.

In San Diego, Mortgage Capital Management (MCM) announced it is now offering an automated report system designed to track and report loan processing times to help banks identify their highest performing entities.

Commercial and multifamily originations rose 33 percent to $244.2 billion in 2012, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

Nationwide Title Clearing, Inc. (NTC), a Florida-based mortgage industry service provider, joined other firms in Las Colinas, Texas, late March at the Five Star Institute's second annual MPact conference.

Fiserv, Inc., announced it has partnered with ChannelNet to create LoanLink, an online channel that enables LoanServ users to quickly roll out self-service websites for borrowers.