In early February, news leaked that Bank of America was so overwhelmed by homeowners applying for the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) that it was literally asking borrowers to wait 60 to 90 days before starting their applications; if

Two government mortgage bodies, Fannie Mae and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), are revisiting their policies regarding condominiums, though their approaches could have contradictory effects on the condo

The Conference Board, the non-profit research group that is responsible for some of the world’s most closely-watched economic indexes, announced yesterday that consumer confidence rose 9.3 points in February in what is perhaps the strongest indication yet that the economy

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) slapped Bank of America (BofA) on Monday with a housing discrimination suit claiming that the bank unfairly treated homebuyers with disabilities. According to a press release released by HUD, BofA violated

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has officially announced that, in an effort to boost its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMI), it will raise its insurance premiums in April. Confirming statements made last week by the agency’s Acting Director Carol

The principal modification just earned a new player in the form of Earl Blumenauer, a Democratic congressman from Oregon who is backing a bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to force write downs on loans during bankruptcy proceedings. The

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) yesterday announced the pilot transaction for its new REO Initiative, a program that targets some of the hardest-hit metropolitan areas with the intention of converting vacant and distressed properties into rental units. Now, pre-qualified

Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index for the 20-City Composite fell 1.1 percent from November to December, capping off a 3.8 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 4.0 percent year-over-year decline that pushed the rate

Bank of America’s long-running relationship with Fannie Mae ended late last week, when the bank announced that it would no longer sell new mortgages to the GSE. According to a New York Times overview of the split, tensions were running

The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a monthly measure of pending home sales activity from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), posted both monthly and yearly increases for January, evidence of continued gains in housing for the next two

For nearly four years now, the narrative in housing has been essentially unchanged – as soon as inventories go down, and the vast number of vacant, excess homes are cleared from the market, prices will increase and a housing

A new Center for Housing Policy study on housing affordability puts an interesting twist on the endlessly contentious debate of renting and homeownership, looking at the topic not from the perspective of one versus the other, but with the reality

January was a month of contradictory results for single-family home sales, as the U.S. Census Bureau reports that though sales of the properties decreased by 0.9 percent from December, they increased by 3.5 percent from January

The news cycles have been awash in reports the last six months on the growing demand for rental properties in the U.S., but too often, renting’s success has been presented  as housing’s loss, a creation of the post-2008 market

Acting Federal Housing Administration Commissioner Carol Galante hinted at further changes in the FHA’s mortgage premium system on Wednesday, referencing revenue models that would complement the recently passed premium hikes for the agency’s

The Architecture Billings Index (ABI), one of the leading economic indicators of future construction activity, reported positive numbers yet again in January, marking the third straight month that the index has been in such territory, according to the most recent press release from