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Foreclosure

Foreclosures Account for 43% of Twin Cities Home Sales

Foreclosure sales accounted for roughly 43 percent of home sale closings in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota last month, and 40 percent of pending home sales contracts. While those market shares are in line with recent trends, Brad Fisher, president of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors, says they're still higher than what he'd like to see. While overall purchase activity in March was down 17 percent, the foreclosure segment saw a 30 percent jump in closed sales.

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Lawmakers Move to Make Servicing Reforms Law

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are seeking to legislate changes to servicing practices. On the heels of the cease and desist orders issued by federal regulators to a handful of mortgage servicers to address process deficiencies uncovered by robo-signing investigations, four bills have been introduced aimed at reforming the way delinquent borrowers are handled industry-wide and aligning servicer incentives with those of investors and homeowners.

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Mortgage Issues Lead to 39% Drop in Income for Bank of America

Bank of America said Friday that it turned a profit of $2.0 billion for the first quarter of 2011. That's down 39 percent from the lender's earnings a year earlier, largely due to continuing losses tied to its legacy mortgage business. Bank of America took a $4.9 billion hit related to foreclosure delays and other out-of-pocket expenses that the company does not expect to recover, as well as higher litigation costs and loss mitigation expenses. The bank has also confirmed plans to lay off 1,500 mortgage employees.

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Congress Eliminates $88M in Funding for Housing Counseling

The budget resolution approved by Congress to keep the federal government running through September includes a package of cuts to federal agency budgets, one of which is HUD's Housing Counseling Program. In lawmakers' efforts to trim agency expenditures, $88 million slated to fund counseling efforts on foreclosure and reverse mortgages has been zeroed out. A HUD spokesperson described the curtailment as ""painful cuts,"" noting that the program provides grant funding to about 2,000 agencies across the country.

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Fannie Mae Opens Two New Mortgage Help Centers in Florida

Fannie Mae announced the opening this week of two facilities in Florida to provide free education and counseling services to struggling homeowners - the Tampa Mortgage Help Center and the Jacksonville Mortgage Help Center. Available to borrowers with Fannie Mae loans, the centers offer one-on-one consultations with experienced housing counselors to review mortgage loans and financing options, explain the range of options available, and help borrowers apply for loan workouts and other alternatives to foreclosure.

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Regulators Assure Public Fines Are Coming for Robo-Signing Offenses

The retrospective foreclosure reviews mandated in the consent orders issued to servicers this week will help regulators evaluate the extent of the problem and determine the amount of monetary fines that should be assessed, according to John Walsh, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Walsh says in addition to these punitive penalties, servicers will have to absorb ""substantial expense"" to fix their problems and are obligated to provide restitution to borrowers who suffered financial harm ""with no dollar cap.""

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Legislation Introduced to Speed Lender Response to Short Sales

Two lawmakers, one Republican and one Democrat, have joined forces to push federal legislation through that would facilitate wider use and shorter transaction timelines for a foreclosure alternative that some say could be a lifeline for millions of underwater homeowners while drastically reducing the number of empty, repossessed homes lining U.S. neighborhoods - the short sale. The bill would impose a deadline of 45 days on lenders to give an approval, disapproval, or status of a decision on an offer for a short sale.

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South Florida Bank Repossessions Decline for First Time in Four Years

Bank repossessions in South Florida decreased during the first quarter of 2011, according to a new report from the locally based firm Condo Vultures. Lenders repossessed 2 percent fewer properties between January and March 2011 than in the same three-month period in 2010 in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. The decline represents the tri-county region's first quarterly drop since the real estate crash began in 2007.

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Pierce & Associates Names Director of Foreclosure Operations

Chicago-based Pierce & Associates P.C., a provider of legal services to the mortgage banking community, has announced the appointment of Ralph Gerardi as director of foreclosure operations. Gerardi previously served as VP at Chase Home Finance and as VP of First American National Default Outsourcing.

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Texas Realtors Rally for Homeowner Rights at State Capitol

More than 2,000 Texas Realtors descended on the Texas Capitol in Austin April 12 for the 2011 Legislative Hill Visits. The governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the Texas House, and legislators met with the Realtors to discuss a range of consumer-protection legislation, including homeowner rights. Realtors say Texas has withstood the real estate bubble that ravaged the rest of the country largely because state leaders made protection of private-property rights a priority in recent sessions.

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