The Builder trade journal has stumbled upon an interesting anomaly in the Houston real estate market – rather than downsizing, an increasingly popular trend that has been increasingly covered by numerous outlets since the housing downturn commenced, builders in the Bayou

A number of legislators in the House of Representatives are hoping that what worked for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will work at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). Twenty-eight congressmen, led by Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat from California, have

Prudential Gary Greene Realtors at the Champions office received the No. 1 ranking in both units and volume during the third quarter for the central United States region of Prudential Real Estate & Relocation Services – a feat that

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Wednesday released details on how its examiners will asses the inherent risk of subprime loans products offered by both private banks and mortgage lenders. Richard Cordray, the newly-appointed director of the CFPB, said in a

The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) announced that The Woodlands have assumed a leadership role in The Bridgeland development project, a planned community in the Houston-area. Grant Herlitz, president of the HHC, said the new role of the HHC is

The latest foreclosure data from RealtyTrac would appear to be promising: the 205,000 foreclosures in December were the lowest monthly total since November 2007, the 1.8 million foreclosures for all of 2011 were a 35 percent decline from 2010

During the various budget crises of 2011, numerous federal programs were threatened with substantial cuts if not complete annihilation in the name of deficit reduction, and one of the more controversial suggestions involved alterations to the popular mortgage interest tax deduction

The FHFA, according to recent interviews, is considering changes to how the CEOs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are compensated, and are even surveying the salaries of other government employees in the process. Long a source of controversy,

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) is investigating the mortgage insurance practices of PHH Corp., specifically if the company violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, a regulatory framework the CFPB enacted on July 21, 2011. According to a HousingWire article,

New data from the federal government on mortgage originations suggests that, as previously predicted by scores of analysts and financiers, the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, will fall short of its modification goals when the program was launched

HARP 2.0, the official name given to the Home Affordable Refinance Program after a series of revisions in October, has been a factor in the housing market for more than four months now, and some analysts are predicting its

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) added 40 new metro areas to its Improving Markets Index (IMI) in its latest release yesterday, bringing to total number of cities to 76 across 31 states. Designed to track housing markets throughout

Strategic defaults, economic-speak for walking away from a distressed property, are not only on the rise but, according to some sources, an economically-feasible option for underwater homeowners. According to a survey conducted by Paola Spienza and Luigi Zingales, two

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

2012 seems poised to be a year of rambunctious construction activity for builders, according to a new study by Houston-based Metrostudy. Mike Inselmann, the president of the firm, said that builders will start at least 20,000 new single-family home projects this