Congressman Bill Posey of Florida has introduced a bill which would allow lenders to classify modified mortgages as accruing rather than non-accruing. Posey claims federal bank regulators are hindering the ability of community banks to modify home loans and keep homeowners out of foreclosure.

A subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing Friday to review Rep. Posey’s Common Sense Economic Recovery Act.

With mortgage delinquencies at unprecedented levels, it’s become clear that the current servicing-fee model is lacking. The GSEs and Ginnie Mae are in the process of developing new servicing compensation structures to provide greater flexibility for the servicing of nonperforming loans. As deliberations move forward, the Mortgage Bankers Association is recommending they consider the idea of a new “reserve account” strategy to cover the higher expenses associated with default servicing.

A judge has denied Bank of America’s motion to dismiss a case involving tens of thousands of homeowners who claim the bank denied them help through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Homeowners are asking that Bank of America provide permanent loan modifications to eligible borrowers and award damages to homeowners wrongfully denied modification. The attorney for the homeowners claims the bank is depriving homeowners of federal bailout funds that could save them from foreclosure.

The Applied Analytics division of Lender Processing Services, Inc. recently introduced the LPS Home Price Index (HPI). The LPS HPI shows historical price trends for residential properties in the United States, offering estimates of property values that underlie residential mortgage portfolios and securities. LPS says the new tool is a reliable way to estimate borrower stress, negative equity, and potential for default and loss.

Allonhill, an independent third-party review firm specializing in mortgage due diligence and credit risk management, hired 25-year mortgage industry veteran Jennifer LeSueur as managing director of due diligence, overseeing Allonhill’s private-sector due diligence operations. LeSueur previously served as director of underwriting at Teletech Loan Services and was VP of credit risk oversight at Aurora Loan Services.

RE/MAX Excalibur Realty, RE/MAX Fine Properties, and RE/MAX Professionals have ranked among the top residential real estate brokerages in the state of Arizona based on “The List” survey published annually by the Phoenix Business Journal. RE/MAX was the only company to place three brokerages in the top 21 rankings based on 2010 local residential sales volume. Forty-four percent of the brokerages’ sales last year were bank-owned and HUD-owned foreclosures.

During the second quarter of 2011, foreclosure actions plunged by 51 percent in the tri-county South Florida region compared to the same three-month period in 2010, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com. Lenders filed close to 7,200 notices of default between April and June in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. Nearly 14,800 were filed in the second quarter of 2010. At the current pace, foreclosure filings in 2011 would rank as the fewest number of actions since the South Florida real estate downturn began.

The national unemployment rate edged up in June to 9.2 percent, as the economy added just 18,000 jobs. The numbers were worse than market forecasts. Economists were expecting the rate to remain unchanged at 9.1 percent and job gains to be between 85,000 and 100,000. Declines in the labor market have added significantly to the volume of seriously delinquent mortgages. On Thursday, the administration announced that it was extending the mortgage forbearance period to 12 months for unemployed homeowners in government programs.

Data released by Clear Capital Friday show home prices at the national level posted their first quarterly gain in June after nine months of declines. The company says the 0.9 percent increase is an encouraging sign that the markets are capable of positive price growth despite continued economic and foreclosure pressures. But even with the second-quarter uptick, U.S. home prices lost 3.2 percent during the first half of 2011, and Clear Capital is forecasting another 2.4 percent drop for the second half of the year.

A group of mortgage-bond investors has filed a petition with the New York Supreme Court requesting to be cut loose from the $8.5 billion settlement proposed last week by Bank of America. The settlement would resolve nearly all of the lender’s repurchase exposure stemming from legacy first-lien residential mortgage bonds issued by Countrywide. Eleven of the companies to be compensated by the arrangement, though, say BofA’s proposal is “inadequate.”