NEW YORK – Nov. 5, 2008 – What does being “underwater” in your house really mean? Probably not that you’re drowning.
The number of underwater homeowners – those who owe more on their mortgages than their home is now worth – has been growing sharply since 2006 as real-estate prices have tumbled. By some estimates, between [...]
WASHINGTON – Nov. 4, 2008 – With an unstable American economy and slowdowns in the housing market, most consumers are open to the federal government taking a more active role in overseeing mortgage and lending practices, according to the 2008 National Housing Pulse Survey, an annual survey released today by the National Association of Realtors.
The [...]
WASHINGTON – Oct. 24, 2008 – Rates on 30-year U.S. mortgages dropped sharply this week, falling to the lowest level in five weeks.
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.04 percent this week, down from 6.46 percent last week. The sharp decline pushed 30-year rates down to the lowest level since [...]
WASHINGTON – Oct. 28, 2008 – Each day from July through September, more than 2,700 Americans lost their homes in foreclosure.
That number, up from 1,200 per day a year ago, is a sign that the mortgage industry and government programs have done little to help troubled homeowners.
The mortgage market’s troubles have proved to be far [...]
WASHINGTON – Oct. 24, 2008 – Rates on 30-year U.S. mortgages dropped sharply this week, falling to the lowest level in five weeks.
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.04 percent this week, down from 6.46 percent last week. The sharp decline pushed 30-year rates down to the lowest level since [...]
ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 24, 2008 – For the first time in almost three years, Florida’s existing home sales rose in September, noting a 24 percent increase in activity in the year-to-year comparison; last month’s sales of existing condos statewide increased 11 percent in the year-to-year comparison, according to the latest housing data released by the [...]
The number of homeowners ensnared in the foreclosure crisis grew by more than 70 percent in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2007, according to data released Thursday.
Nationwide, nearly 766,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice from July through September, up 71 percent from a year earlier, said [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) – Oct. 23, 2008 – Lawmakers have called key players from the past and present to congressional hearings in an effort to find out what caused the biggest U.S. financial crisis since the 1930s and determine how the government plans to get the country out of the mess.
Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the [...]
MIAMI – Oct. 20, 2008 – He frequents the pool at The Venetia condo building. He leaves his Jaguar with the valet. He uses the gym. He’s also behind on his mortgage and isn’t paying his condo association fees.
Neither is his lender, and the association’s board worries the bank is delaying foreclosure to avoid paying [...]
Your “Miami condo auction draws low bids” article was both symptomatic and problematic. A developer holds an auction and now cries that he sold nine condos that he couldn’t sell prior to the auction for less than what they cost to build. This smacks of the real problem – greed coupled with over-inflated prices.
If someone [...]