Servicing

The precedent set by the recent Bank of America MBS settlement raises concerns for smaller banks that might not be able to absorb large settlements as well.

Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. have agreed to hand off some of their foreclosed properties in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The banks have joined others in working with the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., donating vacant and foreclosed properties to the land bank that serves the county in Northeast Ohio encompassing Cleveland.

Residential lenders and investors no longer have to fear steep declines in home prices and mortgage credit should become more available later this year, according to a new report from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

Fitch expects that Bank of America's recent settlement of mortgage repurchase and servicing claims will "positively" affect the ratings of roughly 10% of Fitch-rated residential MBS that are part of the legacy trusts.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is ordering all national banks to conduct in-house reviews of their foreclosure management practices and prepare reports for OCC examiners.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York has approved the reorganization plan of Innkeepers USA Trust, a real estate investment trust which filed for Chapter 11 protection in July 2010.

CoreLogic's April shadow inventory report revealed positive signs for a possible recovery in the housing industry.

The CoreLogic Home Price Index for May increased 0.8% over April but declined by 7.4% when compared with May 2010. Take out distressed sales, and year-over-year prices declined by a mere 0.4% when compared with May 2010. That follows a 0.8% year-over-year decline when distressed sales were removed from the equation for April.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., an insurance brokerage based in Itasca, Ill., has bought Mortgage Insurance Agency Inc., Crystal Lake, Ill., a provider of surety bonds, errors & omissions coverage and fidelity bonds for mortgage brokers and mortgage bankers nationwide. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

New notices of default at the nation's private mortgage insurers far outpaced cures in May, ending a run of three months where the opposite was the case, according to the latest data from the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America.