WASHINGTON – Sept. 29, 2008 – The state of Florida will receive $541 million in new federal foreclosure funds to prevent further home loan defaults and combat the effects of blight caused by the growing tide of abandoned properties, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston announced Friday.
State and local governments must use the [...]

NEW YORK – Sept. 26, 2008 – As the debate over a $700 billion bank bailout rages on in Washington, one of the nation’s largest banks – Washington Mutual Inc. – has collapsed under the weight of its enormous bad bets on the mortgage market.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized WaMu on Thursday, and then [...]

WASHINGTON – Sept. 26, 2008 – Rates on 30-year mortgages, which had been falling for five weeks, jumped sharply this week, reflecting the turbulence in global credit markets.
Freddie Mac reported Thursday that its nationwide survey found that the average for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages rose to 6.09 percent this week, up from 5.78 percent last week. [...]

WASHINGTON – Sept. 25, 2008 – If a first-time homebuyer purchases a home before the end of 2008, he or she gets a $7,500 tax credit in 2009 when they file their federal income taxes, but it must be paid back over time.
Here’s how it works: The first-time homebuyer credit is similar to a 15-year [...]

Googling ” Britney Spears” just now yielded 98,600,000 hits; googling ” President Bush,” 44,600,000. Makes you wonder what’s wrong with this planet, doesn’t it?
Nevertheless, here’s one more contribution to Google: Britney Spears, pop princess or pop pariah, has listed her Beverly Hills Post Office home for $7.9 million.
The house is in a gated community and [...]

WASHINGTON – Sept. 24, 2008 – The FBI is investigating four major U.S. financial institutions whose collapse helped trigger a $700 billion bailout plan by the Bush administration, The Associated Press has learned.
Two law enforcement officials said Tuesday the FBI is looking at potential fraud by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and [...]

ORLANDO, Fla. – Sept. 24, 2008 – For the second month in a row, several of Florida’s metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) reported increased sales of both existing single-family homes and existing condos in August 2008, according to the latest housing statistics released by the Florida Association of Realtors (FAR).
“Despite economic uncertainty and the start of [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sept. 22, 2008 – Home prices. That’s what the Bush administration’s historic Wall Street bailout is really about.
Falling home prices in the U.S. have acted like dominoes, knocking homeowners into foreclosure and taking down lender after lender, until the entire global financial system was in jeopardy.
Experts say that the government’s enormous plan [...]

CHICAGO – Sept. 18, 2008 – The meltdown in the financial and housing markets continues to create a series of good news/bad news scenarios for consumers who either already own their own home or would like to buy one. Here’s how areas of the market are affected:
Fixed-rate mortgages: Interest rates on conventional fixed-rate mortgages continue [...]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Sept. 18, 2008 – Short sales are a financial tactic that appears only in real estate downturns. Such sales are supposed to be a win-win that gets the seller out of a tight spot, a buyer a good deal and the bank off the hook.
But what sounds like a logical alternative to [...]