The administration unveiled its revamped Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) last week to allow borrowers who owe significantly more than their home is worth take out new loans with lower interest rates. CoreLogic says the impact will be targeted to those markets and local economies that have suffered the most from the housing collapse. The company believes HARP 2.0 will be positive for the GSEs and the origination market, negative for bondholders, and neutral for housing itself because distressed borrowers and shadow inventory are left out of the equation.

Continental REO has promoted Gina Gray to the position of closing coordinator. Gray has worked in the residential real estate industry for the last 10 years as a licensed agent, office manager, and a marketing and advertising coordinator. She joined Continental REO in October 2010. Gray has also served as a paralegal, an independent real estate transaction administrator, an agent branding consultant, and in marketing for a national pharmaceutical distributor.

Short sales are growing throughout the nation as distressed homeowners and servicers continue to seek alternatives to foreclosure and home buyers increasingly opt for the significant discounts that come with short sales. With 9,145 completed short sales, the Los Angeles area had more short sale transactions than any other metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the second quarter of this year, according to a recent blog post from RealtyTrac. These short sales came with an average discount of 32 percent and at an average price of $350,237.

State attorneys general and the nation's five largest mortgage servicers could be within weeks of reaching a $25 billion agreement to settle allegations that foreclosures were improperly processed. Details of the settlement terms obtained by DSNews.com indicate that individual servicer penalties will be based on the number of foreclosures they've completed. Collectively, $5 billion would come in the form of cash fines and $20 billion would be satisfied with principal-reducing modifications and refinancing for underwater borrowers.

MountainView Servicing Group said it has completed the sale of a $442 million package of Fannie Mae bulk servicing rights.

Hudson City Bancorp Inc., Paramus, N.J., earned $84 million in the third quarter, in what its top executive called a "difficult environment facing portfolio lenders."

The bankruptcy of MF Global Holdings Ltd. and its ensuing suspension as a primary dealer shook the larger market Monday morning, putting downward pressure on rate-indicative bond yields.

Long-term, fixed-rate mortgages are often seen as a safe loan product, but one Federal Reserve economist says adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) are not as risky as some perceive them to be and did not play a major role in the recent housing crisis. To those who believe payment shocks caused by ARMs were a major player in the foreclosure crisis, Paul Willen, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, says, the "data refute that theory." He says those with ARMs were almost as likely to have seen a payment reduction as a payment increase.

Fannie Mae Monday morning confirmed to National Mortgage News that its multifamily unit is the subject of an Inspector General probe being conducted by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

With most banks still flush with deposits and reluctant to lend, the need for advances from the Federal Home Loan Banks continued to drop sharply during the third quarter, according to a report released Friday by the Office of Finance.