Once dubbed “the face of the housing crisis,” Rebecca Steele has now been hired as the president and CEO of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. In her new role, Steele will build support and momentum for the NFCC national member network of nonprofit organizations, and in addition to this, she will leverage her 20 years of financial services experience to improve the organization and push forward its consumer-focused programs.

For the first time in nearly seven years, the American Land Title Association will soon have a new leader. The trade group, which represents more than 6,200 title insurance companies, title and settlement agents, independent abstracters, title searchers, and real estate attorneys, announced this week its longtime CEO, Michelle Korsmo, is stepping down to move to a vastly different industry.

[Expert commentary] When consumers feel good about their financial future, it tends to be reflected in the housing market. For that reason, it’s hard not to see good things in the recent Consumer Sentiment and Consumer Confidence indices, two key barometers used to gauge the direction of the economy. Yet while the view from the windshield of the economy seems clear, the traffic maps show a good deal of congestion and uncertainty ahead.