A look at stories across HousingWire’s weekend desk…with more coverage to come on bigger issues:

Regulators shuttered four banks on Friday, located in Georgia, Illinois, Michigan and Missouri. The closures are expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) $301.5m. They bring the running 2010 total to 72 banks closed so far this year. By the same week last year, only 33 banks had been shut down.

The Illinois Department of Financial Professional Regulation Division of Banking shut down Midwest Bank and Trust Company. Firstmerit Bank will assume essentially all $3.17bn of assets and will pay the FDIC a 0.4% premium to acquire all $2.42bn of the failed bank's deposits. Firstmerit and the FDIC entered a loss-share transaction on $2.27bn of the failed bank's assets. The closure is expected to cost the DIF $216.4m.

The Georgia Department of Banking and Finance closed  Satilla Community Bank. Ameris Bank will purchase essentially all $135.7m of assets and will pay the FDIC a 0.19% premium to assume all $134m of deposits from the failed bank. Ameris Bank and the FDIC entered a loss-share transaction on $101m of the failed bank's assets. The closure is expected to cost the DIF $31.1m.

The Missouri Division of Finance shut down Southwest Community Bank. Simmons First National Bank assumes essentially all $96.6m of assets, and will pay a 0.5% premium to the FDIC to buy all $102.5m of the failed bank's deposits. The closure is expected to cost the DIF $29m.

The Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation closed New Liberty Bank. Bank of Ann Arbor agreed to buy essentially all $109.1m of assets and all $101.8m of deposits from the failed bank. Bank of Ann Arbor and the FDIC entered a loss-share transaction on $95.2m of the failed bank's assets. The closure is expected to cost the DIF $25m.

Other financial regulators are picking up on enforcement actions. According to the latest report from NERA Economic Consulting on analysis of trends in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement action settlements, the SEC settled with 345 defendants in the first half of fiscal year (FY) 2010 (October 2009 through March 2010). This compares with 328 defendants in the second half of FY 2009 and with 290 defendants in the first half of FY 2009.

The SEC settled two subprime-related cases for more than $100m in the first half of FY 2010, the NERA report finds. State Street Bank and Trust Company's $314m SEC settlement ranks as the largest in the first half of FY 2010, and the seventh-largest settlement overall since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, according to the report.

"What remains to be seen is whether these cases, along with the recent action against Goldman Sachs ($114.12 -1.76%), are the beginning of a new wave of subprime-related SEC settlements," the authors wrote in a summary of the report.

Some developing nations are for the first time "unbundling" their mortgage markets and creating markets for mortgage security trading, according to commentary by Brigitte Posch, an executive vice president and portfolio manager at PIMCO.

The commentary piece -- called Safety in Separation: How Unbundling Emerging Mortgage Markets Benefits Borrowers, Lenders, and MBS Investors -- notes that developing markets matured significantly over the past several decades, though not to the sophistication or size of the US.

Many developing countries maintain "bundled" residential mortgage markets, where one institution still performs the origination, servicing and funding. As developing countries decided to "unbundle" their mortgage lending, the secondary mortgage market begins to open up, according to the report (download here).

This unbundling process aids lenders and borrowers alike, Posch writes. Additionally, some countries learn that a bundled market is not necessarily synonymous with a safer market.

"When the crisis hit, those emerging nations that had their mortgages originated at adjustable or inflation-linked rates, or even denominated in hard currency, saw their interest rates, inflation, and, in some cases, foreign-exchange skyrocket," Posch says. "This created a huge payment shock to borrowers, since their wages did not keep up with the resulting payment increases, and several institutions suffered large losses on loans."

The act of unbundling those markets allows institutions to pass along risks -- like interest-rate and credit risk -- to the end mortgage holders. According to the commentary, these institutions can then promote growth of their products by creating economies of scale and efficient labor division. The challenge, however, is putting in place a strong regulatory framework to facilitate the unbundling process.

Average asking prices on properties for sale in the United Kingdom rose in May (illustrated below) to £237,134 (US$344,537), up 0.7% from April and 4.3% from the same time last year. UK property Web site Rightmove today noted a surge of new sellers just before the recent election to the highest weekly figure since June 2008. Unsold inventory, however, continues to climb.

“We observed last month that rising prices and more properties coming to market would be unhappy bedfellows in the long-term," said Rightmove commercial director Miles Shipside. "This month we are seeing signs that the relationship is under increasing stress. Sellers are starting to reduce their pricing expectations to court the fewer buyers who are able to proceed, though the number of buyers who can purchase is too low to bring volume back to the housing market.”

The return of sellers is depressing prices in London, where the average asking price fell to £420,203 in May, down 0.4% from April. London asking prices remain 5.7% above the same time last year, however. The number of new sellers in London is 97% above year-ago levels.

“This flush of new competition has forced fresh sellers to tone down their asking price demands," Shipside said. "Spring is the traditional time of year for more sellers to come to market, and they were seemingly undeterred by the impending election."

Write to Diana Golobay.

Disclosure: the author holds no relevant investment positions.