First American National Default Title Services Introduces National Residential Rental Services Division

—New Servicing Division Provides Rental Strategies for Financial Institutions—

SANTA ANA, CA – July 17, 2009 – (RealEstateRama) — First American National Default Title Services, a division of First American Title Insurance Company, announced today the launch of its new National Residential Rental Services (NRRS) Division, which provides financial institutions with an efficient option for evaluating and executing rental-based loss mitigation strategies for non-rural, non-seasonal, multistate single-family Real Estate Owned (REO) properties.

First American National Default Title Services’ NRRS Division is the first residential lease service program that has been conceived, designed and built specifically to address the needs of financial institutions pursuing a national residential rental strategy for REO properties.  NRRS has been developed using best practices and systems adopted from both the mortgage servicing and property management industries.

National Residential Rental Services expects to accelerate financial institutions’ use of a broad array of rental-based strategies as an extension of  loss mitigation and asset disposition practices by providing services that facilitate both the generation of net positive cash flows from the rental income of otherwise non-performing assets, and the protection of asset values for eventual sale. NRRS also expects that its services will assist financial institutions in complying with recently enacted and prospective anti-displacement legislation such as the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009.

In addition to the asset-level strategy enhancements from incorporating rental-based alternatives into loss mitigation practices, Wes Mee, president of First American National Default Title Services Division, stated that, “First American believes a broader adoption of rental-based strategies provides significant macroeconomic and social benefits during these challenging economic times by providing investors and servicers with greater control and flexibility over the supply of competing REO ‘for sale’ properties while also providing a net positive cash flow.”

Tim Bolger, senior vice president of National Residential Rental Services and architect of the NRRS business model, describes the focus of NRRS as, “leveraging the products, services and relationships available within the First American family of companies to make implementation of national residential rental strategies as efficient and administratively easy as possible for financial institutions.”

About First American Title Insurance Company
First American Title Insurance Company, the largest subsidiary of The First American Corporation (NYSE: FAF), traces its history to 1889. One of the largest title insurers in the nation, the company offers title services through its direct operations and an extensive network of agents throughout the United States and abroad. The company has its headquarters in Santa Ana, Calif. Information about The First American Corporation’s subsidiaries and an archive of its press releases can be found on the Internet at www.firstam.com .