The government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, started out as a terrific punchline. Though sincere in its aims, the program was saddled with overly restrictive requirements for the nation’s troubled borrowers, and very few were able to take

Freddie Mac’s multifamily housing business increased dramatically in 2012, with the GSE posting its highest volume of multifamily housing business in its

News regarding the housing market has been uniformly positive the last couple of weeks. New home sales in January hit their highest level since 2008. Negative equity is improving. Contract activity has been strong, and the mortgage markets continue

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Commission threw its hat into the GSE reform ring earlier this week, issuing a detailed report calling for a gradual, yet transformative, change to how the nation’s mortgage markets currently operate – and one

The negative equity situation in the U.S. is one of improvement, reported real estate website Zillow, though there is still progress to be made. As Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief economist, put it, the benefits of an improving equity situation are

The Pending Home Sales Index from the National Association of Realtors rose 9.5 percent year-over-year in January, rising to its highest reading since April 2010 and boasting its 21st straight month of yearly

New home sales posted very encouraging numbers in January, rising 15.6 percent from December to January and 28.9 percent from January 2012, according to the latest analysis by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban

Texas home prices remained on solid footing in the December Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard & Poor’s, as prices in Dallas posted an increase of 6.5 percent year-0ver-year for the

There was much to like in last week’s existing-home sales report from the National Association of Realtors. Existing-home sales were up 9.1 percent from last year, median existing-home price was up 12.3 percent yearly, and most encouraging of all, distressed

The multifamily housing market continued its strong performance in the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Architecture Billings Index, a leading economic indicator of future construction activity that is based on the billings from the nation’s architectural firms. For January, the

The mortgage markets showed considerable signs of healing in the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest National Delinquency Survey, a wide-ranging measure of the U.S. residential mortgage markets. Among the survey’s many highlights were the national delinquency rate, which at 7.09

There are numerous brands in the real estate industry, all of which follow unique business models and offer their clients and agents different experiences in the homebuying and selling process; which of those brands, though, is the most recognizable

In what has become a recurring pattern for the housing market, existing-home sales inched up in January while housing inventory declined, according to the latest analysis from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Nationally, existing-home sales were up 0.4

“Optimism” was somewhat of a taboo term during the darkest days of the housing downturn, with any encouraging reports on the housing market earning skeptic glances and caustic asides. Now, though, the situation is a little different. Housing starts,

An interesting thing has been happening in the housing market. Home prices, as we’ve reported on numerous occasions, have been rising steadily after bottoming in 2012’s first quarter, but a recent FNC report found a corresponding trend – discounts

Houston’s market has remained stable and strong – so what were the highest closed properties last