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Foreclosure

Slide in Home Prices Signals Trouble Ahead: IAS

Residential property values fell 0.2 percent at the national level during the third quarter, according to Integrated Asset Services (IAS). In front of a seasonal slow-down in home sales, IAS says the data foreshadow ""particularly difficult times ahead"" for the housing market and for the U.S. economy. The company's report confirms that the nation's most devastated counties are showing no signs of bottoming. The robo-signing controversy is expected to slow the housing correction even further as banks hold back foreclosures.

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Fannie Mae’s Losses Narrow, but $2.5B More Needed in Aid

The nation's largest mortgage financier reported a smaller loss during the third quarter than it did in the second, with the latest figures representing a $17 billion improvement over financial results from a year earlier. Fannie Mae says, though, that it needs another $2.5 billion from taxpayers to cover its net worth deficit. The GSE also reported that home retention actions were down 14 percent in Q3, while home repossessions rose by nearly 24 percent. As of September 30, Fannie Mae's inventory of single-family REO properties stood at 166,787.

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Fitch Says Outlook for Entire Residential Servicing Sector is ‘Negative’

Fitch Ratings has assigned a negative outlook to the entire U.S. residential mortgage servicer sector, citing concerns over procedural defects in the judicial foreclosure process. Fitch says robo-signing issues pose several risks for the servicers involved, including additional costs and resources to research and remediate errors, potential penalties, and flawed reputations. But the damage goes beyond just those servicers. Fitch says it's now an industry-wide issue that will place all servicers under increased scrutiny.

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Attorneys Title Agency Acquires Philip F. Greco Title Company

Attorneys Title Agency (ATA), a full-service title company headquartered in Farmington Hills, Michigan, recently acquired the assets of Philip F. Greco Title Company of Mt. Clemens, Michigan. The transaction closed October 29. The two companies have merged into the newly formed Greco Title Agency, which will have access to the foreclosure and REO clientele of ATA, the largest title insurance provider in Michigan.

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JPMorgan Chase to Restart Suspended Foreclosures

JPMorgan Chase says it will re-file affidavits for some 127,000 foreclosures that have been on hold because of ""robo-signing"" issues. According to a company official, the resubmission of corrected documentation should begin by mid-November and will take at least three to four months to complete. The bank says it risks losing a couple million dollars each month the foreclosure proceedings are delayed. Reviews have confirmed that all foreclosure decisions have been based on materially accurate information, according to JPMorgan.

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Ally CEO: We ‘Screwed Up’ and We’re ‘Embarrassed’ over Robo-Signers

Ally Financial's GMAC Mortgage subsidiary was the first major servicer to announce a foreclosure freeze after finding problems in its procedures that led to errors in legal affidavits. In the words of Ally's own CEO, ""We had a robo-signer affidavit problem. We're embarrassed about it and we fixed it. We'll be the first to say we screwed up."" The company reported a $269 million profit for the third quarter on Wednesday, and said it's decided not to sell its ResCap mortgage unit.

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Freddie Mac Requests $100M in Taxpayer Support after Q3 Loss

Freddie Mac said Wednesday that it lost $2.5 billion during the third quarter of this year. Add to that the $1.6 billion dividend payment the GSE had to make to Treasury on stock the company relinquished in exchange for bailout money, and Freddie Mac reported a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $4.1 billion. The company is asking Treasury for a draw of $100 million in taxpayer dollars. Since Freddie Mac was placed under government control, it has needed $64.2 billion to stay afloat.

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LPS Report Shows Foreclosure Timelines Continue to Stretch

Market data collected by Lender Processing Services (LPS) during the month of September reveals that foreclosure timelines continue to increase, with borrowers in the latest stages of foreclosure languishing without having made a mortgage payment for up to 16 months. LPS notes that the average time a loan remains delinquent in judicial states such as New York and Florida now exceeds 500 days. Nationwide, more than 4.3 million loans are currently 90 or more days delinquent or in foreclosure, according to LPS.

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Lenders Told to Disclose Likely Losses from Paperwork Errors, Buybacks

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is putting mortgage lenders on alert regarding disclosures about potential losses from foreclosure paperwork defects and loans they may be forced to buy back from investors. In a letter sent to the chief financial officers of publicly traded banking companies, the federal agency reminded lenders that they are obligated to relay to their investors any known trends, commitments or uncertainties that they expect could have an ""unfavorable impact"" on the company's financial results.

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Homeownership Rate in U.S. Holds at 11-Year Low

The nation's homeownership rate held steady at 66.9 percent during the third quarter. With foreclosures still mounting, bank repossessions at an all-time high, and many consumers abandoning the idea of the ""American Dream,"" homeownership is at its lowest mark since the end of 1999. Renting is not only gaining ground as the most practical means of housing for a larger number of consumers, but some say it could be the answer to keeping millions of struggling borrowers in their homes and stabilizing foreclosure-ridden communities.

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