Sales of new homes rose last month to the highest level in more than a year as strong activity in the South offset weakness in the rest of the country. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that sales rose 6.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual
The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery. Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in
The last three years have seen a significant drop in the cost of housing in the United States, bringing prices back down from once astronomical levels.
He says his office has gotten a green light to hire 3 attorneys to work exclusively on mortgage-fraud cases and that Washington officials recognize that Arizona has become a hub of white-collar schemes. "The Department of Justice criminal division ha
A rising proportion of fixed-rate home loans made to people with good credit are sinking into foreclosure, adding to concerns about the strength of the economic recovery.
Builders curtailed construction of new homes sharply in October, according to a government report released this morning. The pace of new residential construction fell unexpectedly by 10.6% to a seasonally adjusted 529,000 annual rate compared with
The mortgage measure is the latest effort by the bankers to keep from being stuck with properties that are worth less than they loaned to homeowners. Arizona is an "anti-deficiency'' state. Homeowners who end up owning more than the property is wo
The pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the third consecutive quarter, but the overall delinquency rate hit another record. For the 3 months ended Sept. 30, 6.25% of U.S. mortgage loans were 60 or more d
The Federal Housing Administration's cash reserves have shrunk far below what is required by law, and could need taxpayer funding if worst-case scenarios play out, according to an audit measuring the agency's financial soundness.
Fannie Mae said it would be offering one-year leases to people who sign over their homes as a deed in lieu of foreclosure. Voluntarily surrendering homes instead of having the lender repossess them doesn't wallop the borrowers' credit as much.
Thousands of borrowers on the verge of foreclosure will soon have the option of renting their homes from Fannie Mae, under a policy announced Thursday. The government-controlled company, through its new "Deed for Lease" program, will allow borrowe
Goldman Sachs Group got into the residential mortgage business in 1984, and for 17 years, it ran a staid operation that simply bought and sold loans. All that changed in 2001, when the elite investment bank leaped aggressively into the burgeoning
Why didn't Wall Street firms tell potential investors the bonds they were selling them were rotten? Why did their partners ignore glaring evidence that borrowers weren't qualified and give loans to anyone with a heartbeat? Because they could.
In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of tho
The housing market is so bad you can't even give away homes these days. Officials in suburban Barrington put three homes up for a sale at just a dollar a piece - a dollar! - and didn't get a single bidder. A dollar!
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 major cities climbed 1 percent from July to a seasonally adjusted reading of 144.5. While prices are down 11.4 percent from August a year ago, the annual declines have slowed since February.
In a crowded ballroom next to a bankrupt casino, what remains of the Detroit property market was being picked over by speculators and mostly discarded. After five hours of calling out a drumbeat of "no bid" for properties listed in an auction book
Judge Robert D. Drain wiped out a $461,263 mortgage debt on the property. That’s right: the mortgage debt disappeared, via a court order.
And the happy spin the NAR put on this morning's housing numbers was a joke.
Do you live in the Chicago/St. Charles area? Do you have time to help promote this event? Can you help America right the many wrongs that surround us?
A $29 billion trail from the Federal Reserve's bailout of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns ends in a partially deserted shopping center on a bleak spot on the south side of Oklahoma City. The Fed now owns the Crossroads Mall, a sprawling shop
...debate over who owns your body and can decide what repairs it receives, the media and the public have overlooked the fact that the U.S. House of Representatives has already ruled in H.R. 2454 that the state owns your house and can decide what repa
The Obama administration launched a program to help the depressed U.S. housing market by effectively allowing state and local housing finance agencies to borrow from the U.S. Treasury. The initiative aims to restart a source of mortgage financing for
The number of households caught up in the foreclosure crisis rose more than 5 percent from summer to fall as a federal effort to assist struggling borrowers was overwhelmed by a flood of defaults among people who lost their jobs. (Duh!)
Bank of America employees are reminded every day of how far they still have to go. Just outside the elevators of their vast third-floor command center, attached to the wall, is a cardboard thermometer that shows them inching toward their goal of sign
Home-foreclosure activity has spilled across every geographic and socioeconomic border this year, proving that no community was too cautious, clever or well-funded to remain unscathed.
INVALID MORTGAGES TRAINING WORKSHOP - Land, Money, & Mortgages SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2009 - 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. - (Movie Night/Potluck follows at 5:00 p.m.!)
A Casa Grande homeowners association was placed in receivership, following allegations that board members drained funds for their own benefit - including what was described as the “theft” of more than $600,000.
More California hotels are being pushed into foreclosure as tourists and businesses alike scale back their travel plans and owners are unable to pay their mortgages. Statewide, more than 300 hotels were in foreclosure or default on their loans as
Consumer advocates say a growing number of older homeowners and a new crop of eager lenders could steer the reverse mortgage industry down the same financial course that toppled the subprime mortgage market and left taxpayers footing the bill. In
