The Lede

GoRion, Aug. 2, 2017--Sam BourgiU.S. home sales hit a snag in June, as a dearth of available property pushed prices to new records. However, signs of life in the homebuilding sector allayed concerns of a more protracted drop in the months to come.

Forbes, Aug. 2, 2017--Ely RazinIn its commercial real estate financing, Bank of the Ozarks has shown particularly strong involvement in construction lending--which tends to be both riskier than standard CRE financing and offer higher returns--even as other banks by and large have been reducing construction lending.

Commercial Property Executive, Aug. 2, 2017--Paul FiorillaUrban redevelopment is a familiar story in metros across the country. Now Newark, N.J., wants to get into the revitalization game with $1 billion of projects underway and another $4 billion in the pipeline.

CNBC, Aug. 2, 2017--Diana OlickTotal mortgage application volume fell 2.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Wall Street Journal, Aug. 2, 2017--Janet Adamy, Paul Overberg (subscription)The country is the least mobile since after World War II, even in economically depressed rural locales.

National Mortgage News, Aug. 2, 2017--Ian McKendry (subscription)Any change to the credit scoring models that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac use will have to wait until 2019, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said late Tuesday.

National Mortgage News, Aug. 2, 2017--Brad Finkelstein (subscription)Genworth Financial's U.S. private mortgage insurance business had an almost 50% increase in adjusted operating income, benefiting from lower-than-expected claim rates.

HousingWire, Aug. 2, 2017--Ben LaneOcwen reported its second quarter earnings on Wednesday morning, disclosing that it posted a loss of $44.4 million in the second quarter, compared to a loss of $32.6 million in the first quarter, and a loss of $87.2 million in the second quarter of last year.

Bloomberg, Aug. 2, 2017--Sho ChandraThe gain in hiring at companies in July, along with upward revisions to the prior month, is consistent with moderate growth in U.S. employment, according to data released Wednesday from the ADP Research Institute.

Reuters, Aug. 2, 2017--Richard Leong, Jonathan SpicerSt. Louis Federal Reserve James Bullard is opposed to further U.S. interest rate increases by the central bank and warned that more hikes could hinder domestic inflation from achieving the Fed's 2-percent goal.

Mortgage Daily, Aug. 2, 2017On Wednesday, Flagstar announced Kristy Fercho has been hired to lead its mortgage business as president. Fercho comes to Flagstar from Fannie Mae, where she spent 15 years.

Mortgage Daily, Aug. 2, 2017Last month's government-insured reverse mortgage production was the slowest it has been since last year. But there was a year-over-year improvement.

Scotsman Guide, Aug. 2, 2017--Victor WhitmanMortgage banking groups [including the Mortgage Bankers Association] this past week came out strongly against a resurrected proposal to include a language-preference question in the standard form used to apply for the most popular home loans.

HousingWire, Aug. 2, 2017--Ben LaneThis year really is turning out to a year of expansion for RealPage, as for the fourth time in 2017, RealPage, a provider of software and data analytics to the real estate industry, announced that it is is acquiring another company.

Inman, Aug. 2, 2017--Andrea V. BrambilaWith the purchase of Clareity, CoreLogic has extended its real estate tech offerings to include Clareity's flagship SafeMLS user authentication tool and its single sign-on MLS and broker dashboards.