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Wells Fargo Reports 13% Increase in Q1 Profits

Amid improvements in the mortgage sector, Wells Fargo & Company reported a net income of $4.2 billion, with earnings per share at $0.75 for the 2012 first quarter on Friday. Last year during the same quarter, the bank reported a net income of $3.8 billion, or $0.67 per share. The San Francisco-based bank also reported mortgage banking noninterest income at $2.9 billion, up $506 million from fourth quarter 2011. Mortgage originations increased as well, with the bank reporting $129 billion in originations, up from $120 billion reported in the fourth quarter.

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eMortgage Logic Celebrates 10th Anniversary

eMortgage Logic, LLC is celebrating its 10th year in business. The company provides residential real property valuations, data, analytics, and customized solutions for mortgage lenders, servicers, and investors nationwide. The idea for eMortgage Logic originated with Ralph Sells during his tenure at Freddie Mac, after Sells revived a struggling internal broker price opinion company acquired by the GSE's HomeSteps division.

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JPMorgan Chase Reports Earnings for Q1, Mortgage Revenue Up

JPMorgan Chase, which surpassed Bank of America as the largest bank in terms of assets in October 2011, reported a net income $5.4 billion, with earnings per share at $1.31. The reported net income and earnings per share for the 2011 first quarter was $5.6 billion and $1.28, respectively. The bank saw a significant boost with mortgage production-related revenue, which was reported at $1.6 billion, an increase of $722 million, or 80 percent, from the year before. At $59.9 billion, mortgage loan application volumes increased 33 percent compared to the prior year, and 14 percent from the previous quarter, mostly due to heavy refinancing activity.

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Attorney Fined More Than $50,000 for Frivolous MERS Lawsuits

A Minneapolis-based attorney has been sanctioned by a federal judge for filing one, in what appears to be a series of nearly 30 lawsuits based on what the court says are frivolous show-me-the-note defenses designed to thwart foreclosure proceedings in Minnesota by calling into question the validity of MERS as mortgagee. William B. Butler of Butler Liberty Law, LLC has been ordered to personally pay $50,000 to the court and pay an additional undetermined amount of legal costs incurred by counsel for MERS and its co-defendants.

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SIGTARP: Hardest Hit Spent 3% of Budget, Program Lacks Participants

As of December 31, 2011, the Hardest Hit Fund (HHF), which is meant to fund innovative measures to help families through the housing crises in hardest hit states, has spent just 3 percent of its budget since its February 2010 inception, a report published by a watchdog organization for taxpayers revealed Thursday. More specifically, as of the end of 2011, HHF spent $217.4 million of the $7.6 billion available for the program, and has provided assistance to just 30,640 homeowners, which is about 7 percent of the 458,632 to 486,536 homeowners it is estimated to help over the life of the program, which ends in 2017.

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Strategic Default Here to Stay Despite Improvements, Risk Managers Say

With reports that around 20 percent of mortgages are underwater, about 46 percent of bank risk professionals surveyed by FICO expect to see the volume of strategic defaults in 2012 exceed 2011 levels. Combined with concerns over strategic default are disconcerting results about consumer priorities. Combined with concerns over strategic default are disconcerting results about consumer priorities. Only 29 percent of bankers said the current generation of homeowners considers their mortgage to be their most important credit obligation, while 49 percent said its not a priority.

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Freddie Mac Reports 15-Year Rate Fell to New Low

Following a disappointing employment report, fixed rate averages fell for the third week in a row, with the 15-year fixed-rate hitting a new low, while the 30-year rate continues to fall further beneath 4 percent, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The 15-year rate dropped to 3.11 percent (0.7 point), hitting a record low from when it averaged 3.13 percent on March 8, 2012. Last week, the 15-year's average was 3.21 percent and 4.13 percent a year ago during this time.

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Initial Unemployment Claims Jump to 10-Week High

First time claims for unemployment insurance jumped 13,000 to 380,000 for the week ended April 7, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the highest level since the end of January. At the same time the previous week’s report were adjusted upward by 10,000, wiping out what had been a four year low and showing an increase of 4,000 initial claims instead of an originally reported drop of 6,000 for the week ended March 31.

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RealtyTrac Reports Foreclosure Filings Down, Foreclosure Timelines Up

Foreclosure filings - default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions - were reported on 572,928 properties during the 2012 first quarter, down 2 percent from the previous quarter and down 16 percent from the first quarter of 2011, according to RealtyTrac's U.S. Foreclosure Market report. Also, the number of days it took to foreclose on properties in the first quarter took longer, averaging 370 days, up from 348 days in the previous quarter and the highest average number of days going back to the first quarter of 2007.

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CoreLogic: Best Markets for Single-Family Rental Investments

Single-family rental investing is a $3 trillion market, according to a CoreLogic’s MarketPulse report, which further stated that the single-family rental market accounts for $21 million rental units, or 52 percent of the residential rental market. With reports showing rental prices have gone up and home prices have decreased, it's no surprise that large investors have shown interest in buying up single-family homes at a discount to convert them to rental units. Based on the 26 major markets CoreLogic assessed, the markets that yield the highest single-family rental cap rates were generally in Florida or the Midwest.

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