Sales of existing homes remained significantly below year-ago levels in January, reaching a seasonally-adjusted rate of 6.46 million units. January sales volume was 4.3 percent below the 6.75 million-unit level reported in January 2006; median prices also dropped 3.1 percent from year-ago levels, the NAR reported. Total housing inventory levels rose 2.9 percent at the end [...]

Foreclosure filings in Massachusetts continued to escalate at a record-setting pace, reaching a new high water-mark in January. According to a report released today by ForeclosuresMass.com, 2,207 foreclosures were initiated statewide during January 2007, more than double the number recorded in January 2006. Lenders have initiated foreclosure proceedings against 20,618 homeowners over the past 12 [...]

First American Title Insurance Company said late Monday that its Lenders Advantage division has implemented WebSigning, its branded technology for electronic signing and approval of mortgage refinance loan documents. EverBank is the first lender to utilize the WebSigning service, First American reported. The bank can upload electronic versions of loan packages to the WebSigning platform [...]

The U.S. Alt-A market achieved unprecedented volume of $104.8 billion during fourth-quarter 2006, according to a recently-released report by Standard & Poor’s Rating Services. The total surpassed the $103.5 billion record set during second-quarter 2006, and the calendar year closed with three consecutive quarters of at least $100 billion in volume. Standard & Poor’s rated a [...]

Kansas City-based NovaStar Financial (NYSE:NFI) is the latest subprime lender to be hit with class action claims of securities fraud, after reporting last week that it lost $14.4 million during the fourth quarter and stating that it did not expect to report taxable income for the next five years. At least three class action claims have [...]

ResCap’s GMAC-RFC said late Friday that it will transfer subservicing of loans currently being subserviced by troubled lender Mortgage Lenders Network USA, Inc. to Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, effective March 1. On January 29, Housing Wire reported that RFC had delivered notices terminating the servicing rights of Emax Financial Group, LLC and the subservicing rights [...]

The HedgeStreet exchange said today that it has expanded its home value markets to 10 major metropolitan areas. The markets, which HedgeStreet claims it pioneered two years ago, are benchmarked against the National Association of Realtors’ reported Median Sales Price of Existing Single-Family Homes in 10 metropolitan areas. The newest areas represented are Las Vegas, [...]

And there’s the rub: For all the negative press the subprime industry has been getting lately, Impac’s admission of significant losses this past week – along with other residential REITs outside of the subprime sector, including Opteum – signals that the problems within subprime credit may not be entirely confined just to subprime. Last week’s commentary [...]

Bloomberg reports on the continued freefall in BBB- on ABX indices, and says tightened underwriting criteria are further fueling a credit crunch in subprime lending.

H&R Block Inc. (NYSE:HRB) reported yesterday that it lost a consolidated $44.7 million in the company’s fiscal third quarter for 2007, which ended January 31st. Losses at the company’s troubled subprime mortgage lending outfit Option One offset nearly $25 million in early tax-season revenues, the company said. Option One lost $69.7 million during the quarter, [...]