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Mortgage Rates Fall Once Again: Freddie Mac, Bankrate

Mortgage rates continued to inch down for the week ending May 20, 2010, Freddie Mac and Bankrate reported Thursday. According to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 4.84 percent this week. The GSE says this is the lowest rates have been since December 2009. Bankrate's analysis put the 30-year mortgage rate at 4.96 percent, and attributed the week-to-week drop to ""global economic angst.""

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Lenders Repurchase $3 Billion in Mortgages from GSEs in Q1

With home loans going bad at a still-staggering pace and losses mounting for the GSEs, the nation's two largest mortgage financiers are pursuing several avenues to recover money, including returning poorly underwritten loans to lenders. During the first three months of this year, Fannie Mae required lenders to buy back $1.8 billion in loans. Freddie Mac sent $1.3 billion in faulty home mortgages back to the loan sellers during that period. The two companies have said they expect to return as much as $21 billion in home mortgages to banks in 2010.

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Internet Veteran Jesse Gant Joins RealtyTrac

RealtyTrac announced this week the hiring of technology and Internet veteran Jesse Gant. In his role as VP of product and user experience, Gant will lead a team to develop a product plan and vision to drive membership and revenue growth. He will also spearhead new site initiatives, including social networking capabilities, aimed at improving page views, sales, and retention rates.

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Local Workshops Provide Assistance to 2,500 SoCal Homeowners

Representatives from more than a dozen mortgage servicers, along with local HUD-approved housing counselors, were on hand last week in Anaheim and San Bernardino, California to help struggling homeowners with their mortgages. The four days of events saw 2,576 at-risk homeowners come through the doors to learn what they can do to lower their mortgage payments and avoid foreclosure.

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Survey: 59% of Borrowers Would Not Walk Away if Underwater

A survey by Trulia and RealtyTrac shows that only 1 percent of homeowners with a mortgage say walking away would be their first choice if they were unable to make their payments, while 59 percent would not consider a strategic default no matter how much their mortgage was underwater. With walking away off the table for most homeowners, the survey found that only 5 percent of borrowers would opt for a short sale as their first choice if facing foreclosure, while 69 percent would pursue a loan modification to save their home.

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FDIC Adds 73 Banks to Troubled Watch List

The number of insured financial institutions on the FDIC's so-called problem list has risen to 775, up from 702 at the end of 2009. The total assets of problem banks have increased to $431 billion. The FDIC says both the number and assets of problem institutions are the highest they've been since mid-1993, but the agency also pointed out that the latest increase in the number of problem banks is the smallest in four quarters. So far this year, 72 insured banks have gone under.

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IndiSoft’s RxOffice Platform Adds Postal Service Address Verification

Sending letters of notification to homeowners throughout the delinquency life cycle is a requirement to meet insurer, investor, and state guidelines. Failure to send mail to a valid address can invalidate a foreclosure action and result in penalties. Technology provider IndiSoft has added U.S. Postal Service address verification to its RxOffice platform to help its clients address this issue.

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REDC Launches New Auction.com Site

Real Estate Disposition, LLC (REDC), a national real estate auction firm headquartered in Irvine, California, announced the re-launch of its Auction.com Web site on Wednesday. The company says it has increased site content tenfold to support more than 500,000 unique monthly visitors.

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CoreLogic Home Price Index Shows Second Consecutive Annual Increase

National home prices increased by 1.7 percent in March 2010 compared to a year ago, according to CoreLogic. It marked the second straight month that CoreLogic has recorded annual gains in home prices, breaking a depreciation streak of more than three years. But the company warns that going into the summer months, price growth will quickly fade, and because of the inventory of distressed properties, CoreLogic expects home prices nationally to fall another 5 percent over the next 12 months.

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Maine to Transition to the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System

In an effort to make it easier and more efficient for mortgage lenders to apply for and manage their licenses, Maine has signed on to use the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS), Will Lund, superintendant from the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection announced Tuesday. According to the Bureau, this change will also protect Maine consumers by increasing oversight of the mortgage activities of loan originators in other states.

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