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Forty-one state attorneys general signed a letter Tuesday urging U.S. House and Senate leaders to extend the expiring Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007. The attorneys general argued failure to extend the act would take away from the national mortgage settlement. ""Requiring a homeowner to pay income tax on forgiven or canceled mortgage debt would make the National Mortgage Settlement much less effective,"" the letter states. The act, which is set to expire December 31, 2012, allows taxpayers to be excluded from paying taxes on forgiven debt from a foreclosure, short sale, or loan modification.

An analysis released by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods(KBW) found representation and warranty costs for loan repurchases remained elevated in Q3. According to KBW, current losses can mostly be attributed to loans sold to the GSEs. Fannie Mae repurchases totaled $2.02 billion in Q3, and its balance of outstanding repurchase requests increased to $16.2 billion. Meanwhile, Freddie Mac repurchases totaled $819 million, and its outstanding requests ticked up to $2.94 billion.

Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA), an association of private mortgage insurers, reported Monday that since 2009, its members have insured $86.9 billion in mortgages modified or refinanced through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) and the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) as well as in mortgages modified through other means. The $86.9 billion is distributed among 496,961 homes across the nation.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a complaint was filed Tuesday against Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and its affiliates for allegedly misrepresenting residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) sold to investors. The complaint is the result of investigations carried out by the RMBS Working Group. The investigations were based on practices from 2006 to 2007, and the group alleges Credit Suisse issued $93.8 billion in RMBS during that time. By mid-2012, losses from those securities reached over $11.2 billion, or 12 percent of the total.

With the deadline to request an independent foreclosure review nearing, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston sent out a notice to encourage the public to take action.

As the rental market continues to grow stronger, the quality of rental applicants also showed improvement from last year, according to report from CoreLogic. The data provider's multifamily applicant risk (MAR) index report stood at 106 in Q3 2012, an improvement of two points from last year, but a decrease of 3 points from Q2 2012. A score above 100 indicates an applicant pool with reduced average risk of default.

Since 2011 when Treasury required the largest servicers to develop a single point of contact (SPOC) for all homeowners working through loss mitigation as part of the Making Home Affordable program, servicers have begun to implement the new standard in various ways. The Treasury noted in a recent report the nine largest servicers participating in the program have implemented three different SPOC models. In total, the nine servicers Treasury observed have increased staffing and now have 12,000 SPOCs working to communicate with homeowners.

Housing starts rose 3.6 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 894,000, the highest level since July 2008, but permits for new residential construction fell the Census Bureau and HUD reported jointly Tuesday. Housing completions soared in October, up 14.5 percent during the month to 772,000, the highest level since June 2010. The increase in completions was led by a 5.3 percent jump in multifamily completions. Single-family completions in October reached their highest level since June 2010, increasing to 542,000.

Agents who initiate a short sale without an offer and participate in the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) or the bank's Cooperative Short Sale program can submit documents using an electronic signature, the bank explained.

JPMorgan Securities LLC and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) paid a combined $416.9 million to settle charges of misleading investors in the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced. According to the SEC's complaint against JPMorgan, the bank misstated information about the delinquency status of mortgages that provided collateral for an RMBS offering it underwrote. JPMorgan received fees of more than $2.7 million, and investors sustained losses of at least $37 million on undisclosed delinquent loans, the SEC says.