Secondary Market

President Obama has appointed two new chairs to lead the FDIC's board of directors, the agency announced. Martin J. Gruenberg is the board's new chairman, and Thomas M. Hoenig is the vice chairman.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ServiceLink has appointed a new company leader, naming Kevin Coop as EVP of enterprise strategy. In his new role, Coop will head up business development for ServiceLink's originations and default sales teams, as well as coordinating the company's marketing group and product development strategy team.

The always-expensive Manhattan real estate market has gained a sky-high listing with an equally lofty price tag, with the former home of architect Paul Rudolph recently hitting the market for $27.5 million. According to Curbed, Rudolph is famous for creating "some of the country's best known Brutalist structures," and his legendary former residence boasts three spacious apartments which are now for sale collectively.

Pennsylvania's GMH Mortgage Services LLC announced the addition of Bill Bogle as SVP of capital markets. Bogle has worked in the mortgage industry for more than 15 years, having served most recently at New Penn Financial as VP of secondary marketing.

Kinecta Federal Credit Union's mortgage volume reached more than $3 billion at the end of October, exceeding its 2011 volume with a full quarter still remaining.

A controversial bill that would extend an increase on guarantee fees (g-fees) on mortgages backed by the GSEs or the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has passed in the House of Representatives. The bill, H.R. 6429 (STEM Jobs Act of 2012), proposes reforms for immigrant visas offered to immigrants who possess advanced training in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. A section added to the bill calls for a one-year extension of g-fee hikes to help pay for the program, changing the end date on the fee increases from October 2021 to October 2022.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) has been elected chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Hensarling replaces Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama) who headed the committee for the past six years.

After experiencing a one-month lull, mortgage insurance activity picked up in October. According to data from Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA), member companies wrote 42,833 insurance policies in October. In dollar volume, members reported $11.5 billion in insurance written throughout the month. October's volume was a significant step up from September, which saw 37,554 policies totaling $10.1 billion. A year ago, member companies reported 26,293 policies written for $5.1 billion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ended its investigation of potential fraud in offering documents for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) sold by Wells Fargo.

Amid an improving commercial real estate market, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) predicts declining vacancy rates in all sectors of commercial real estate in the coming year. The greatest vacancy decline is expected among office properties. Office vacancies should fall about one percentage point over the year, dropping from 16.7 percent to 15.7 percent. While the smallest vacancy decline is expected in the multifamily sector, NAR states there is "a full recovery already in the multifamily market."