Servicing

In Pittsburgh, PNC Financial Services Group's board of directors elected president William S. Demchak as director and announced that he will succeed chairman James E. Rohr as CEO. The board held the election in response to Rohr's desire to step down as CEO at the company's 2013 Annual Meeting of Shareholders on April 23 and his intention to retire from the company and the board next year.

Ellie Mae, a leading provider of enterprise-level, on-demand automated solutions for the residential mortgage industry, announced that Jonathan Corr has been promoted to company president. In his role, Corr will be responsible for managing Ellie Mae's day-to-day operations. He will also continue to serve as COO and will keep reporting to Sig Anderman, the company's chairman and CEO.

Deloitte's Consumer Spending Index declined for the third straight month in January, the company reported. The index, which tracks consumer cash flow as an indicator of future spending, fell to 3.87 from a previous reading of 3.93. Patricia Buckley, director of economic policy and analysis at Deloitte and author of the monthly index, explained the decrease is "primarily due to slowing increases of new home prices," though gradual improvements in initial unemployment claims and real wages may reverse the downward trend in the future.

Conditions are ripe for home values in 2013, according to January national housing data collected by Realtor.com.

In Michigan, Flagstar Bancorp, Inc., announced an agreement to sell the assets of DocVelocity, its document imaging business for mortgage lenders, to Capsilon, a provider of cloud-based sharing, imaging, and collaboration services for mortgage lenders.

One real estate consulting firm has noticed a substantial divide between housing starts and completions and points to labor as the major factor.

United States Appraisals, a nationwide appraisal management company based in Kansas, named Richard Garrie as chief appraiser. Garrie has more than 17 years of residential valuation experience, including eight years as a branch manager for Forsythe Appraisals, LLC.

ORNL Federal Credit Union (FCU), the largest credit union in East Tennessee, announced it has entered into an agreement to purchase land to be used for a new full service branch in 2014. The announcement follows a tremendous year of growth for the credit union, which saw a 15 percent increase in its customer loan portfolio and a more than 12 percent growth in all loans in 2012.

Bolstered by favorable seasonal adjustment factors, first-time claims for unemployment insurance dropped 27,000 to 341,000 for the week ending February 9, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected a much smaller decline to 360,000. Initial claims were under 350,000--a dividing line between a strong and weak labor market--for the third time in the last five weeks, hinting layoff activity has returned to normal.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama acknowledged the progress that has been made in the housing market with rising prices, increasing home purchases, and an uptick on construction. However, "even with mortgage rates near a 50-year low, too many families with solid credit who want to buy a home are being rejected," he said. Obama also proclaimed his support for expanding access to refinancing, calling on Congress to pass a refinance bill currently in the pipeline.