WASHINGTON Aug. 31, 2010 A new federal rule this year requiring mortgage lenders to give borrowers reliable estimates of closing costs appears to be working whether its also costing borrowers more money is uncertain.
A recent survey by Bankrate.com found that, on average, origination and third-party fees on a [...]

WASHINGTON May 20, 2010 Mortgage rates fell this week to the lowest level of the year, as rates fell on U.S. government securities. Fixed mortgage rates closely track interest rates paid on long-term Treasury bonds.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage dipped to 4.93 percent this week [...]

McLEAN, Va. March 5, 2010 Mortgages rates have dipped below 5 percent again, four weeks before a government program that is helping keep rates low is scheduled to run out.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 4.97 percent this week, down from 5.05 percent a week earlier, mortgage finance company [...]

WASHINGTON Feb. 19, 2010 Rates for 30-year home loans edged lower for the second straight week, a report said Thursday, but remained above last years record lows. The average rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 4.93 percent this week, down from 4.97 percent a week earlier, mortgage finance company Freddie Mac [...]

LOS ANGELES Feb. 2, 2010 The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said Monday it will ask for less money from Uncle Sam this year because it expects income from two of its agencies to more than double.
HUD operates the Federal Housing Administration and Ginnie Mae, in
addition to a host of affordable [...]

McLEAN, Va. Jan. 4, 2009 Mortgage rates rose for the fourth straight week, ending the year above 5 percent.
The average fixed rate on a 30-year mortgage was 5.14 percent last week, up from 5.05 percent one week earlier, Freddie Mac said Thursday.
Mortgage rates are closely tied to yields on long-term government debt. The [...]

WASHINGTON Dec. 22, 2009 Even before the government put pressure on them to embrace short sales, more banks were starting to take their lumps, do the short-sale deals and move on.
Three years into the housing meltdown, short sales have tripled to 40,000 in the first six months of 2009 compared to the same [...]

WASHINGTON Oct. 23, 2009 President Barack Obama announced new small-business lending initiatives Wednesday that aim to expand loan amounts and make more capital available to small banks.
Small businesses fuel the economy and have been hardest hit by the recession, losing 2.4 million jobs from the middle of 2007 to the end of 2008, [...]

Oct. 2, 2009 Rates on 30-year home loans dropped below 5 percent for the first time in four months, but still remained above this years record low, Freddie Mac said Thursday.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.94 percent, down from 5.04 percent last week, Freddie Mac said. The last time the [...]

High-flying financiers are sweating a coming wave of mortgage defaults tied to office and apartments buildings. Unfortunately for them, too big to fail doesn’t apply to the $6.5 trillion U.S. commercial real estate market.
Unlike the multitrillion-dollar government intervention launched to keep the American housing market from cratering, Washington has done little to ease a [...]