U.S. mortgage applications fell last week despite the lowest loan rates in four months, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday, in another sign that housing will likely recover slowly from its three-year plunge.
Home loan applications fell a seasonally adjusted 2.8 percent in the Sept. 25 week, driven down by a 6.2 percent drop in [...]

Fannie Mae the largest provider of funding for U.S. home mortgages, said Tuesday that delinquencies on loans it guarantees accelerated as its mortgage investment portfolio was unchanged in August from the previous month.
Delinquency on loans in its single-family guarantee business jumped by 0.23 percentage point to 4.17 percent in July, the most recent data available. [...]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The market value of U.S. homes in 20 major cities rose by 1.6% in July compared with June, the third monthly increase in a row, according to the Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday by Standard & Poor’s. In July, prices rose in 18 of 20 cities. In the [...]

Lots of big news rumbling out of FHA, which continues to rack up record market shares of the home mortgage business.
New FHA Commissioner David Stevens announced not only comprehensive changes to the agency’s appraisal rules, but also a 10 percent reduction in the amount of money senior home owners can receive from the popular reverse [...]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Question: Can you write an article on what takes place when a mortgage loan is paid off? A lot of baby boomers may be interested. I had a $5,000 balance when my loan was transferred and it was paid off in June. All I received from the mortgage company was a letter [...]

Now that we have new and existing home sales in, I want to point out a couple of facts that got lost in all the paperwork:
1. New construction makes up 6.7 percent of total homes for sale. Existing, therefore, makes up 93.3 percent.
2. Inventories continue to come down for both new and existing, and there’s your [...]

15-year fixed-rate mortgages at lowest on record
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Mortgage rates held their three-month lows this week, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 5.04%, unchanged from last week, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of conforming mortgage rates.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.09% a year ago
The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.46% — the lowest it [...]

New U.S. home sales posted a tepid 0.7 percent increase last month, missing Wall Street expectations and providing more evidence that the housing market recovery remains tentative.
The Commerce Department said Friday sales inched up to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 429,000 from a downwardly revised 426,000 in July. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had [...]

I hate to say “I told you so,” okay, that’s a lie, who doesn’t love to be right?
Existing home sales took a U-turn in August after four straight months of gains, and this is exactly what we were afraid of, as inventory at the low end of the market runs dry and the first time [...]

The housing recovery remains weak and could take a turn for the worse if more Americans lose their jobs, analysts say.
“The market’s incredibly fragile,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys. “As long as job losses are rising, the housing market is at risk of continuing along a decline. Any recent stability would be in [...]

U.S. mortgage applications jumped last week to their highest since late May as interest rates tumbled below 5 percent, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended Sept 18 increased 12.8 percent to [...]

The cost of a middle-management-type home varies significantly depending on where in the country you live. But there are some huge spreads within states, as well.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Imagine you’re a mid-level executive living in Grayling, Mich., the “Canoe Capital of the World.” You’ve received a job offer that pays twice as much in [...]

It may be a buyer’s market for those looking to purchase a South Florida condominium, but a new FHA rule putting an end to “spot approvals” for home loans may burst the shopping bubble and make it much more difficult to qualify for a loan.
By extension, the same rule may also mean [...]

Is the housing market on the brink of turning corner? That depends upon whom you ask!
The Bull Case
True the bulls may be wearing blinders but that’s not to say they haven’t gotten some pretty positive catalysts.
The latest came from Lennar’s president and CEO Stuart Miller who recently said  ”we’re gaining confidence that we’re getting much closer to [...]

We’ve been talking a lot recently about the “next wave” of foreclosures that would be driven by adjustable rate mortgage resets. In a research note today, FBR’s Paul miller is taking an interesting tack: “While we remain very concerned about the impact of continued job losses on default rates, our analysis suggests that payment shock from [...]

U.S. single-family home prices rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.3 percent in July from June but were 4.2 percent lower than a year earlier and 10.5 percent below their April 2007 peak, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said on Tuesday.
The regulator’s monthly home price index (HPI) for June was revised down to a 0.1 percent [...]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Question: I am very close to purchasing a condo with an FHA loan, am I eligible? I am a first-time buyer. How do I apply the credit towards my closing costs and down payment? Is there an IRS form I need to download? What are the steps to apply it to my [...]

Commercial real estate is the “second shoe” to drop in hurting the economy, Daniel Tishman, chairman and CEO of the Tishman Construction Corporation told CNBC.
“We’re getting through the single housing real estate market OK but the numbers involved in commercial real estate in all sectors are staggering,” Tishman said. “Trillions of dollars are involved in [...]

High U.S. unemployment keeps pushing up the rate of mortgage delinquencies, which could in turn drive personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures, monthly data from the Equifax credit bureau showed on Monday.
Among U.S. homeowners with mortgages, a record 7.58 percent were at least 30 days late on payments in August, up from 7.32 percent in July, [...]

IRS program will use home-loan deduction data to snag tax cheats
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — The mortgage-interest deduction claimed by millions of homeowners every year may prove to be a useful window for the IRS to peek into taxpayers’ income situation — and potentially reap millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.
First, some history. Each year, your [...]