Tag Archives: Attorneys & Title Companies

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.

The GAO revealed it considers the agency to be a "high risk" program "due to [its] greater vulnerability to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement or the need for transformation."

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

The gap between the listing price and closing price of an average home sold continued to narrow last year as market conditions gave the advantage to sellers.

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.

Fixed mortgage rates continued to hold steady last week, according to data from Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com.

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.