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Wells Fargo took top honors in the residential mortgage lending space for the fifth consecutive quarter, with loan origination volume of $130 billion in the fourth quarter, according to MortgagesStats.com.

The San Francisco-based bank and mortgage lender saw volume increase 36 percent from a year earlier and 26 percent from the third quarter.

The company claimed a more-than-healthy 24 percent market share, well above second-ranked Bank of America, who held a 16 percent share with $87 billion in loan origination volume.

BofA actually saw fundings drop three percent from a year ago, though they were up markedly from the $74 billion seen in the third quarter.

Chase rounded out the top three with $53 billion in loan volume, grabbing nearly 10 percent market share (9.9%).

The New York-based bank and lender saw fundings increase 49 percent from a year earlier.

CitiMortgage and Ally Bank/Rescap (GMAC) took the fourth and fifth slots, respectively, with nearly identical loan origination volume of just over $23 billion.

The lenders saw year-over-year increases of 108 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

But the top year-over-year gainer was actually PHH Mortgage, who saw mortgage fundings jump 112 percent to $18 billion.

Check out the top ten mortgage lenders below:

With regards to ownership of apartments or real estate in Rio de Janeiro there are several things to take into consideration. As with any purchase a great deal of research needs to be done about properties that are for sale. One major thought that people often forget about is transportation. How will you get around? Though sometimes this is easy to forget, it is certainly something that should be thought about before you are closing deals on penthouse apartments in Copacabana or Ipanema.

So to start, what are your choices as far as transportation? In Rio de Janeiro there are many. The choices could include car, bus, taxi, subway and in some cases boats. Obviously, your methods of transportation will also be dictated by your financial situation as well as usefulness. If you live in the south zone (Ipanema, Copacabana, etc.) then the subway is a very prompt and cost effective option.

Even so if you live in Barra da Tijuca or even Recreio you will have to look at other alternatives, since a subway won’t be completed to these places for quite a while. H

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On Monday, Facebook launched the “Send” button introducing a new way for users to share content. The new feature is a private version of “Like” button specific to Facebook Groups and it allows users to send a web page link to a friend through Facebook Messages, post it to a Group wall, or send as an email to an email address of their choice.

“A year ago, we launched the Like button, which gives you a quick way to share the things you find on the web with all your friends,” Elliot Lynde, a Facebook Groups engineer, wrote in a blog post. “But there are times when you find something that you only want to share with a few specific people.”

Mr Lynde said that with this new feature “you can share things with any of your Groups or individual friends on Facebook.”

The social media company said that the Send button is designed to appear next to the Like button on the websites that choose to integrate both features. Upon clicking the s

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You know things are bad when a prince is facing foreclosure…

Especially when it’s the “Prince.” We’re talking Purple Rain here folks.

Per the Star Tribune, the famous pop star’s 20 acre Chanhassen, Minnesota residence, located in the St. Paul/Minnea

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Microsoft Corp. today announced its support for the Startup America Partnership by making the benefits of the Microsoft BizSpark program easily accessible to Startup America Partnership’s qualified software startups. In the future, Microsoft will add new benefits targeted at the broader Startup America Partnership community.

The Startup America Partnership was launched in January at the White House to help entrepreneurs start and grow companies by leveraging the resources of the private sector. President Barack Obama is scheduled to have a town hall meeting in Palo Alto, Calif., later today, which will be followed by an update on the initiative, featuring prominent new partner companies and entrepreneurs benefiting from its products, programs and services.

“Microsoft has been a longstanding and active participant in the entrepreneurial community and has formidable assets to contribute to the success of the Startup America Partnership,” said Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and founding board member of the Startup America Partnership. “Thou

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In today’s era of globalization, small and medium sized businesses have been credited with significantly helping the economy. SME’s have contributed to over 50% of the GDP and provided over 60% of the total employment in so-called developed, high income countries. As a result, world events have taken their toll on small and medium sized enterprises.

Small businesses were the hardest hit, by events like rising oil prices as well as sharp rise in price of gas, following unrest in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. This has affected shipping orders, business flights, and every day travel expenses. In fact, smaller companies find it difficult to survive in the new cost structure.

Small enterprises are in constant requirement of funding, for which they would require to prove their effectiveness. Costs, sales and profits are the three things which financial institutions take into consideration before lending funds to budding entrepreneurs. So

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