Not even a week after the Federal Reserve published an economic white paper urging government action on REOs, word has trickled out of Washington that the government, in cooperation with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is planning a pilot

Expectations for both homeowners and consumers rose in promising ways in December in the latest Fannie Mae National Housing Survey. According to a press release from the GSE, the percentage of Americans who said the economy was on the

Residential construction employment finished 2011 in positive territory, the first time that the sector has experienced gains in six years, according to new datafrom Calculated Risk’s Bill McBride. Not since 2005, when residential construction increased by an incredible 268,000

The CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI), the influential measure of home values that is used by the Federal Reserve in its analysis, came out earlier today, showing values in November continued their winter slide. A three-month weighted average of

Freddie Mac has announced new policies for unemployed borrowers that can grant the troubled homeowners up a year in breaks from their mortgage payments. According to a HousingWire article on the policies, which go into effect Feb. 1, Freddie

The mortgage insurance tax deduction, a commonly-used feature that can save homeowners to the tune of hundreds of dollars a year, could be a thing of the past, according to a new piece by HSH. First approved by Congress

Following in the steps of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac has eliminated a major restriction to borrowers seeking to refinance with existing servicers. Beginning yesterday, borrowers now have no credit score requirement for refinancing, as long as they have at

Richard Cordray, the former Attorney General of Ohio, was officially sworn in as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a long-awaited appointment that had been stalled by Congressional stonewalling. The question for real estate professionals, though, is

April 1 is the set datefor when the new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee fees will rise by 10 basis points as the primary funding method for the government’s recently-passed payroll tax cut extension, and Lenders One, a

On December 21, as the year winded down and everyone began anticipating the holidays, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) quietly released a 14 percent downward revisionto its existing-home sales, reversing data going back to 2007. Though the association

REO inventories, and the supposed plan on what to do with them, have attained a near-mythical status in recent months. Every month or so, we publish a story on recommendations from the National Association of Realtors, local attempts to

News flash: homebuyers care about the perceived quality of a property. Though hardly news to agents, the 2011 National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, just released in November, found that 67 percent of homebuyers decided

Down payments can make or break a housing contract, and recent data from LendingTree, which reports that the average down payment on homes is just 12 percent, would appear to be welcome news. After all, high down payments and

Everyone has a hypothesis on what specific factor is prohibiting housing from a true, sustainable recovery. Typically, such hypotheses feature a stock list of usual suspects – excess inventory, REOs and foreclosures, vacant properties, unreasonably tight financing and contract failures. An academic

Construction spending in November exceeded economists’ predictions and rose 1.2 percent from October to $807.1 billion, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce. All in all, construction spending was positive across the

Numerous disagreements swirled around Congress’ passing last month of the payroll tax cut extension, but none proved more controversial with real estate professionals than the agreed funding method for the tax cut – and now a date has been