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Closing of Texas Bank Pushes Year’s Failures to 74

The Texas Department of Banking and the FDIC seized control of First International Bank in Plano, Texas, over the weekend. The closing is expected to cost the FDIC's insurance fund $53.8 million and brings the agency's failed-bank tally to 74 for the 2011 calendar year. The FDIC brokered a deal with Houston, Texas' American First National Bank to take over the failed institution and purchase essentially all of its assets.

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Fitch Upgrades Residential Credit Solutions’ Servicer Ratings

Mortgage servicer Residential Credit Solutions (RCS) stands out from the crowd in today's world of almost commonplace ratings downgrades and default servicing challenges. RCS has been awarded two upgrades from Fitch of its primary servicer rating for subprime products and its special servicing rating. Fitch said the rating actions reflect the company's 'high touch' servicing approach, competitive performance metrics, and effective default and foreclosure practices.

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Former Countrywide Employee Behind Bars

A former Countrywide employee is now behind bars and being forced to pay $1.2 million in restitution for stealing and dispersing confidential customer information, including social security numbers. A U.S. district judge sentenced 39-year-old Pasadena resident Rene Rebollo to eight months in prison and 10 months in a community corrections facility. Rebollo, who served as a senior financial analyst in Countrywide's subprime mortgage division, pled guilty to the charges.

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Job Loss Could Put One in Three Out of Their Home

One in three Americans would be unable to make their mortgage or rent payment beyond one month if they lost their job, according to the results of a national survey taken in mid-September. Job loss has become the primary driver of mortgage defaults. With the state of the labor market posing one of the biggest obstacles for struggling homeowners and their lenders, a number of programs at both the national and state level have been launched to assist unemployed homeowners, but so far the expected results haven't materialized.

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States Can Learn from New England’s Foreclosure Prevention Programs

As delinquencies and impending foreclosures rose, New England states responded with foreclosure prevention programs, generally falling into one of two categories: foreclosure mediation and financial assistance. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston examined these efforts to determine ways other states can learn from them. Five of the six New England states have their own mediation programs, and Massachusetts created a program allowing negotiation without a mediator.

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eMortgage Logic Releases Interactive Polygon Mapping Functionality

eMortgage Logic (EML), a national property valuations provider based out of Texas, is taking the guesswork out of determining the neighborhood for the subject property with the release of new proprietary interactive polygon mapping functionality. The company says the transparency provided through this new tool will enhance internal and external quality analysis and will provide clients with the confidence that comparables are not only similar in characteristics, but also in location.

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Industry Veterans Join to Deliver Portfolio Management Solutions

MasterServ Financial, Inc., a new provider of portfolio monitoring, analysis, and management tools and services, has named veterans from the mortgage lending industry to its management team. Led by CEO and Big Four consulting veteran John Iatesta, the MasterServ Financial team is tasked with leveraging the company's technology resources and a customer list that includes the likes of HUD and Ginnie Mae to improve portfolio performance and asset quality for private sector financial services organizations and the GSEs.

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Nevada Announces New ‘Foreclosure Fraud Reform’ Law

Nevada has held the number one spot in state foreclosure rankings for 56 consecutive months. In fact, for the month of August, RealtyTrac reports one in every 118 Nevada homes received a foreclosure filing. While foreclosures cannot always be prevented, the state is taking steps to protect homeowners facing foreclosure. A new ""Foreclosure Fraud Reform"" law will go into effect October 1. It lays out new rules for the recording of foreclosure documents and mandates the foreclosing party prove chain of title.

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August Pending Sales Decline After Spurt in Existing Sales

The National Association of Realtors' (NAR) Pending Home Sales Index for August was 88.6, which is on par with last year's pending home sales average for the year, according to NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun. Yun says the index has been moving within a narrow range for the past several months. On a monthly basis, pending home sales fell 1.2 percent in August, although existing home sales in August rose 7.7 percent on a monthly basis and 18.6 percent year-over-year.

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Mortgage Delinquencies Rise as Home Retention Actions Drop: Report

Data released Thursday by a federal banking regulator provides a snapshot of mortgage performance over the second quarter of this year. Both early stage and serious delinquencies increased slightly compared to the previous three-month period, as did completed foreclosures, while new modification actions fell nearly 20 percent. Perhaps the most troubling result in the report is post-modification performance. Of loans modified since the beginning of 2008, nearly half have since gone delinquent.

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