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» VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 7 A look at facts you didn't know you couldn't live without Compiled by the DS News Staff TAKE A LOOK INSIDE THE NUMBERS D ATA B I T S SVP OF OPERATIONAL RISK ASSESSMENTS FOR MORNINGSTAR CREDIT RATINGS Building permits in March 2014 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 990,000, down 2.4 percent from the February rate but up 11.2 percent from March 2013, according to Economics and Statistics Administration. Real average hourly earnings for all employees rose 0.5 percent, seasonally adjusted, from March 2013 to March 2014, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. WELLS FARGO LAWSUIT ALLEGES 'RETRO- SIGNED' FORECLOSURE DOCUMENTS PAGE 37 INSIDE THE JOURNAL // MOVERS & SHAKERS // ON THE WEB // THE APP SPECTRUM *Forecasts for the 12 months ending in September 2014 in metro poulations of one million or more. **April 2014 to April 2015 forecast for the bottom 10 CSBA with the YOY percent change. Source: CoreLogic Case-Shiller FIVE MINUTES WITH Richard Koch TOP 10 HOUSING MARKETS* 1 Oakland, CA 9.3 2 Fort Worth, TX 8.9 3 New Orleans, LA 8.7 4 Richmond, VA 8.5 5 Hartford, CT 8.3 6 Tampa, FL 8 7 Baltimore, MD 8 8 Birmingham, AL 7.8 9 New York, NY 7.4 10 Memphis, TN 7.3 Urban Areas ANTICIPATED GROWTH* Ranking BOTTOM 10 HOUSING MARKETS** 1 Austin, TX 0.5 2 Dalton, GA 0.53 3 Muskegon, MI 0.69 4 Lafayette, LA 1.29 5 Killeen, TX 1.67 6 Scanton, PA 1.96 7 Pine Bluff, AR 2.18 8 Portland-South Portland, ME 2.35 9 Evansville, IN 2.94 10 Huntington-Ashland, WV 3.43 Ranking Urban Areas ANTICIPATED DECLINE** A lawsuit filed in a New York federal court alleges that Wells Fargo, the nation's top mortgage provider, created a detailed, step-by-step internal manual on how to retro- sign foreclosure documents originated by other lenders. e suit filed on March 11 by Linda Tirelli, a bankruptcy attorney and consumer advocate based in White Plains, New York, claims that Wells Fargo crafted a 150-page manual for its attorneys that outlines exactly how to make it look as if a lender has signed over a mortgage to the bank, by auto-signing electronic documents. It is the latest layer of trouble regarding robo-signing for Wells Fargo. Claims of im- properly signing court-entered documents first surfaced in 2010, when Wells and CitiBank found themselves on the defensive for allegedly transferring mortgages that didn't belong to them. According to the New York Post, which broke the latest story the day after Tirelli's filing and has reviewed the manual Tirelli cites in her suit, the Wells Fargo document spells out how to provide post-dated endorse- ments and allonges—two bits of paperwork that prove that the foreclosing lender actually owns the loan—on mortgage notes that did not originally have them. Wells Fargo denies it has done anything wrong. Spokeswoman Vickee Adams said, "Wells Fargo's foreclosure processes—to- day and back in 2012—are appropriate, legal, and customer focused. To allege otherwise is simply misrepresenting the facts." Adams also stated that a note endorsement review is "a thorough, multi-step internal process designed to ensure that Wells Fargo has the right to enforce the note in cases when a borrower defaults and fore- closure alternatives have been exhausted" and that the bank's Foreclosure Attorney Procedure Manual provides "only the information that our outside foreclosure attorneys need to know." e reference to 2012 is an allusion to the landmark $25 billion federal mortgage fraud settlement with the five largest lenders in the country, regarding fraud and abuse claims in mortgage lending—including the issue of robo- signing documents retroactively. How Wells Fargo found itself in its current position goes back to the beginning of the cen- tury, says bankruptcy and consumer litigation attorney Gary Armstrong, a partner at Arm- strong Kellett Bartholow in Dallas. Around 2003, an insatiable global appetite to invest in securities generated a mortgage and lending boom that itself created numerous REMICs, or real estate mortgage investment conduits, that held bundles of mortgages from various lenders in trust. "We saw a ton of these trusts created then," Armstrong said. Claims of improperly signed documents first surfaced in 2010.

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