Secondary Market

The goal of attracting private capital into the mortgage market is at the center of discussions throughout the industry and the government. Thus far, efforts by the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) and other federal agencies to provide incentives for the creation of a vibrant private mortgage securitization market have been largely unsuccessful, according to Fitch Ratings. However, the ratings agency does see some promise in a couple of FHFA's goals for this year.

The economy added 236,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate slipped to 7.7 percent, its lowest level since December 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday. Economists had forecast payrolls would grow by 160,000 and that the unemployment rate would remain at 7.8 percent.

Nearly half of respondents in Fannie Mae's most recent housing survey said they expect home prices to rise in the next 12 months, up from 45 percent in January.

Nationwide Title Clearing (NTC), a post-closing services provider located in Palm Harbor, Florida, announced the promotion of longtime employee Michael O'Connell to COO. O'Connell has been with NTC for eight years, formerly leading the sales and client relations teams as VP of client relations.

Leads360 announced the availability of Leads360 Express, a cloud-based software solution designed to help small lenders and loan officers improve their sales lead conversion rates.

Initial unemployment insurance claims fell 7,000 for the week ending March 2, closing the week at an advance estimate of 340,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The decline represents the fourth drop in the last five weeks, indicating a downward trend in layoffs.

The Policy Advisory Board of Harvard├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós Joint Center for Housing Studies convened its first meeting of 2013 under the leadership of recently appointed chairman Michael H. Thaman.

Following an industry report on immigrants in the American housing market, Residential Finance Corporation announced a new program for foreign and immigrant homebuyers.

In Tennessee, Quality Mortgage Services, LLC announced the opening of QMiS Systems, a provider of knowledge processing outsourcing (KPO) and business processing outsourcing (BPO) designed to serve the financial services and banking industries.

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, one of the nation's largest mortgage banks, announced the hiring of Phyllis Cheong and Pattie Wainright-Hosti as senior loan officers serving Georgia's greater Savannah area.