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United Financial Bancorp, Inc., is losing its long-time chief operating officer and executive vice president. The company recently announced that COO and EVP Keith E. Harvey will retire, effective December 31, after having served United Financial for 28 years. United Financial's current chief lending officer (CLO) and EVP, J. Jeffrey Sullivan, will succeed Harvey as COO following his transition at the end of 2012. To fill Sullivan's previous role, United Financial has promoted Charles R. Valade as the bank's new CLO.

Redwood Trust, Inc., is making significant changes to its directorship, recently announcing the departure of current chairman of the board, George E. Bull, III, who officially stepped down from his leadership role on September 18. Following Bull's transition, Redwood unanimously elected Richard D. Baum as the company's new chairman for its board of directors.

Clayton Holdings LLC selected James Meleones to serve as senior managing director of Commercial Real Estate services.

A seasoned mortgage executive has arrived at Decision Ready, the company announced Monday. Bill Garland joined Decision Ready as EVP of strategic relationships and business development. Garland has years of experience in leadership positions, serving most recently as SVP of ISGN Lending Solutions, where he managed client relations and business development for IT services.

Mortgage rates slid to new lows this week as investors dumped their cash into safe-haven Treasury debt, prompted by the Fed's decision to keep interest rates low for an unfixed time. Zillow found the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slipping past 3.2 percent for the first time to arrive at 3.18 percent, down from 3.35 percent on Wednesday last week. The real estate website said this marks the lowest rate for the 30-year home loan since 2008, when it launched its weekly survey. Interest rates for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages dropped to 2.59 percent, while those for 5-year and 1-year adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 2.43 percent.

With gaffes and down polls embroiling his campaign, Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney unveiled a housing white paper on Friday to reposition his message and salvage his campaign. The document, titled ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├àÔÇ£Securing the American Dream and the Future of Housing,├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├é┬Ø prescribes several conservative policy must-haves. For starters, there├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós much ado about the return of private capital to the secondary mortgage market and devolution for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Oh, and jobs. Twelve million to be exact.

Commercial, multifamily mortgage debt outstanding totals $2.37 trillion as of the end of the first quarter, according to recent data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Roughly 3.5 million consumers will get back $200 million in restitution from Discover Bank after federal agencies came down on the financial services institution on Monday for allegedly deceptive sales strategies. The FDIC and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unveiled a public enforcement action to conclude their joint investigation that started last year. According to a release, Discover Bank will also fork over $14 million in civil penalties for masking financial products with fees as freebies, misleading consumers about charges, even processing orders without their consent in cases.

The popularity of FHA mortgages is slowing down, while the use of mortgage financing is growing overall, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. FHA-backed transactions made a slight increase in August to 25.9 percent from 25.5 percent in July. The percentage is down from January, when FHA transactions accounted for 27.3 percent of all home purchase transactions. Overall, mortgages were used to finance 68.9 percent of home purchase transactions in August, an increase from 67.5 percent in July.

Billionaire author J.K. Rowling, writer of the Harry Potter series, has listed her Scottish mansion for $3.7 million. Currently, Rowling owns two estates in Edinburgh.